


Harmless

by rufeepeach



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Spinner Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 02:12:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 74,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle arrives, bruised and bleeding, on the doorstep of a lame spinner and his son. On the run from the war and its causes, her short stop-over becomes something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everything is quiet in the village.   
  
More than quiet: silent.  It’s the kind of calm emptiness that only comes when everyone is locked up tight, hiding their children by firelight and quietly – quieter than mice and tiny crawling insects – mourning their dead.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin is no exception. He cowers, and feels little shame anymore in doing so, with Baelfire never out of his line of sight.   
  
His boy is sleeping, calm and quiet and still, and yet still never safe.   
  
He is thirteen and a half, but soon he will be fourteen, and who knows by then what the draft age shall be? Rumpelstiltskin has the sick urge to simply lock Bae away in the house, forbid him ever to leave, tell the villagers they took him in the night.   
  
It wouldn’t be the first time, after all, that a child was one day there and the next day gone.   
  
They’ve long since given up their old stories, fables of changelings and wicked fairies. This is no magic: these are men, flesh and blood the same as he, but with a darkness in their sick souls Rumpelstiltskin hopes never to feel. They steal children from their beds and stick sharp weapons in their soft, fragile hands. They send boys and girls too young to know how to live off to die in trenches far from home, for a cause no one left alive can remember.   
  
It started out with a murdered son and a broken deal. Of this, Rumpelstiltskin is certain: the heralds and travelling storytellers all agree.   
  
This war, this third Ogre war, is nothing but a family thing. But the families in this Realm settle their disputes with massacred villages and fields of slain children, and Rumpelstiltskin cares nothing for their fights, their causes. The banner of truth and honour against the flag of chivalry and valour, and who really cares anymore who wins this time?   
  
Bae is what matters, and Bae is safe.   
  
For now, at least.   
  
Rum sits by the fire, his small bowl of vegetable soup warm in his hands. At least they don’t starve; at least the farms to the North are as yet untouched by the battlefields. Food has become if anything more plentiful, as soldiers come through once a week with rations far greater than what Rum could have afforded by trading his twine.   
  
Bae eats better while his old playmates perish.   
  
Rum feels sick to his stomach at that thought, but a glance to his boy – his perfect, brave, beautiful boy – asleep in his bed soothes him somewhat.   
  
No one can protect everyone, and it is foolhardy to try. Better to choose one thing, the one thing you cannot live without, and focus everything you are on keeping it safe. Rum cannot exist without Bae; to lose him would be the worst kind of tragedy.   
  
So they hide, and whisper, and scurry like rabbits in their warren, and hope to God that the hunters pass them by.   
  
Rum cannot sleep that night; no matter how hard he tries. Much like the night before, and the night before that, his bones will not shift and mould to fit his skin comfortably anymore. His leg is painful, with no knowledge of the salve to treat it – the healers are long gone to war, along with the witches and the children – and his shoulders tight, tense, feet twitching and ready to run.   
  
Every night, he lies awake and waits for the knock on the door. For the black-clad men from the Ducal palace, come to collect his precious boy and drag him into a warzone.   
  
Then, one night, it happens. A scraping, slight tap on the front door instead of the thundering, demanding knock he had expected, but he is still bolt-upright in his cot, still sweating and breathing hard. His head swims, feverish, hot and cold with burning, chilling terror.   
  
He races as fast as he can to Bae’s bed, shakes him awake, “They’re coming, son,” he murmurs, hurriedly, “Get yourself hidden.”   
  
Bae nods, although his frown is ever-present. Bae would like to fight for his people, and perhaps die a hero’s death. But Bae is a boy who has never seen a lick of death, who has never bled more than a skinned knee and never hurt more than a fall from a slim tree branch, and Rum is immovable on this point.   
  
He will be a coward until the day he dies, and consider it worthy if Bae is there to see it.   
  
He answers the door slowly, calming his breathing so as not to arouse suspicion. Perhaps the soldiers will see his limp, and believe his lie that they took the boy on their last tour through the villages. Perhaps they will mistake his fear for mourning, laugh at the poor crippled father and be on their way.   
  
He opens the door, and braces himself.   
  
There is no one there.   
  
He sighs, a gusty sound of relief, loud in the dead silence of the terrified night.   
  
Another sound, long and high and quiet, a whimper of pain or a cry for help, follows his sigh. A woman’s sob, and close by.   
  
At his feet, in fact. For there, curled on his doorstep in a dress once fine, but now little more than tattered and muddy rags, lies a woman. She is trembling, pale and rail-thin, and staring at him with massive and haunted eyes.   
  
“I couldn’t run any farther.” She whispers, an almost-apology, and it is strange for Rumpelstitlskin to feel like the stronger of any pair of people, “I couldn’t.”   
  
And this is not a place for a poor, cowardly spinner to take in a refugee. What if she is a deserter, a soldier missing from the battlefront? What if they look for her and find Bae early, take him as punishment? What if she is discovered, and taken away, and tells them about his son, makes a deal for her life?   
  
Her blue eyes are massive, pleading, her skin bone-pale behind the layers of grime and dirt and dried blood.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin stands aside, and reaches out a hand to help her inside. For one night, and one night alone, he can share his soup and his hearth, and allow a fellow runner to sleep in his straw.   
  
Bae comes out of his hiding place, and staggers blindly from the cupboard to the bed. He does not see the pale, inhuman figure hunched by the fire, ghostly and frail, nor his sleepless father handing her a small bowl of soup, and settling himself in his rocking chair to keep watch.   
  
Rum wasn’t going to sleep that night anyway.  
  
Bae does, however, notice the next morning, when he quickly shakes his papa awake, anxious and wide-eyed. “Papa! Papa!”   
  
“What?” Rumpelstiltskin rumbles away, “What is it, Bae?”   
  
“We have a squatter,” Bae murmurs, anxious but not yet frightened, “She snuck in in the night.”   
  
“Oh,” Rum’s heartbeat returns to normal, and he sighs, relaxes back in his seat, “Yes, I let her in. She seemed in need of a good meal.”   
  
“Oh,” Bae is looking at him oddly, but does not seem afraid or unhappy, “That’s… really generous, papa!” it takes him a moment, but he recognises that expression at last: his boy is proud of him.   
  
It’s been an awfully long time since he saw that; he’s not sure quite what to make of it.   
  
“Yes, well, can’t let anybody starve.”   
  
“No,” Bae’s eyes are gleaming, and Rum’s chest aches. His boy is so  good , so shining and honest and kind, golden right down to his soul. He should be the prince of this land, not this Duke who has slaughtered so many and for such little reward. “No we can’t.”   
  
His shining eyes turn back to the girl, crumpled in their best chair, pale and tiny, too small for her own skin.    
  
He himself could have carried her, by his reckoning, and Rumpelstiltskin is weak and lame. No one in this village eats quite enough; no one can be called strapping or well-fed. But this girl makes the poorest hag look like a queen, dining on pheasant and chops of lamb.   
  
There are few people in this world lower and weaker than Rumpelstiltskin, and he’ll be damned if he allows them to suffer when he can help.   
  
Bae looks at him with pride, this early morning, and that is worth everything.   
  
“Should we wake her up?” Bae whispers, and Rum considers.   
  
“No,” he says, finally, “We let her sleep, son. She looks as if she needs it.”   
  
They leave her, quietly, padding out of the house to the spinning wheel out front as silent as mice. This town is very, very good at silence.   
  
They spin all morning, and for once the twine is good, smooth and ready to sell with few mistakes. The wheel creaks, as it always has, but no one in this village has grease or oil to soothe it with. The wheel creaks; it always has and always will. Bae slips inside to check on their guest every half hour or so, and for the first six checks, she remains asleep.   
  
The seventh time, things change.   
  
Her eyes fly open, meet his, and he’s scurrying out as fast as he can on his clumsy feet, “Papa, Papa!”   
  
“What is it, son?”   
  
“She’s awake!” Bae whispers, remembering at the last moment that the whole village does not need to know of their visitor. “The girl, she’s-”   
  
There is a crash from inside the house, and Bae turns, eyes wide, stares at his father in alarm. He runs inside, and Rumpelstiltskin hobbles after him, hoping to all the Gods that the poor thing hasn’t damaged anything or hurt herself.    
  
She appears to have tripped on his spare walking stick, and fallen hard. Bae helps her to her feet, but she pulls away from his touch like a wounded animal, the fear on her face painfully naked and fierce. He knows that kind of fear: he feels it every night, when he closes his eyes and sees his son dragged away from him by nameless, faceless guards. She is running and hiding the same as everyone, so fast she cannot tell her friends from her enemies.   
  
Bae wouldn’t hurt a soul, and Rum follows his son’s example.   
  
“Come on,” Bae encourages, trying to lead her back to her seat by the fire, “Come sit down, you’ll feel better.”   
  
Bae has never met a problem a good cup of tea and a warm seat by the fire can’t solve. Rum hopes to every God he’s ever heard of that he can stay that way forever. The girl goes with him, slowly, stumbling; she follows Bae to the fire and curls back up in her chair with a little sigh, half relieved and half defeated.   
  
“What’s your name?” Bae asks, knelt at her feet and smiling; Rumpelstiltskin cannot imagine a soul on earth who could resist his son when he’s all bright eyes and kindness.   
  
The girl just stares at him: she looks entirely horrified, like she’s just been struck, like an animal cornered by a hunter in the forest. Bae just smiles - he always had a way with frightened creatures - and puts a hand on her arm, “It’s okay: we won’t hurt you. We just need to know what to call you.”   
  
“B-” she starts, and then stops, frowns, stares hard at Rum over Bae’s head. Bae looks and says only what he is: Rum has never known his boy to lie. Honesty and sweetness are written on his forehead, but Rum knows that he himself is another matter. He looks like a man who would shop a runner to the guards for a small bag of coin, like someone who would leave his friends to die in the trenches as he ran for his own worthless life.   
  
And, for the most part of his life, that impression is accurate.   
  
But not now, not in front of his boy. Bae would never let him get away with something like that: the boy would hang back and help her, if Rum were ever to leave her to be found by whoever chased her. He’d refuse to run if it meant harming another.    
  
He nods, a small and slight movement, and the girl looks back to Bae’s hopeful face, “Rose. My name is Rose.” she murmurs, her voice hoarse and weak, and Bae nods approvingly.   
  
“Rose is a nice name. I’m Baelfire, and this is my papa, Rumpelstiltskin.” he introduces them with courtesy, with pride, as if they’re more than just a friendless, crippled spinner and his son. As if they’re gentry, nobility, sharing their home with an expected and welcome guest. As if she is not bruised, rail-thin and dirty, clad in rags that make their clothes appear rich and well-made.    
  
“Wonderful,” she croaks, and tries to push herself back to her feet, “Well, I thank you for your hospitality, it was most appreciated,” her accent, behind her whisper, is Northern and refined. Not at home here in the Frontlands, not at all.   
  
“Oh, no dear,” he steps out, unsure of what he thinks he’s doing, and pushes her back to her chair, “You’re not going anywhere in this condition.”   
  
“I’m fine.”   
  
“You arrived on our doorstep last night looking like a plague survivor,” he counters, his mind made up: if Bae wants this woman saved, then saved she shall be, “You can stay for a little while, until you can walk without stumbling, at least.”   
  
She’s staring at him, eyes wide and filled with a mix of such hope and such mistrust that he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.   
  
He supposes he’d look the same, if a stranger offered him such help without asking for payment, without requesting his heart and soul as recompense.   
  
“Thank you,” she murmurs, and the ghost of a smile slips around her mouth, gone in an instant but certainly not forgotten.   
  
She tries to escape three times that day, and every time Bae will just quietly slip away from the wheel, or put down the wool he’s carding, and step inside to retrieve her. Rum doesn’t follow: some things are best left to the pure and good of heart, those who look and act as heroes and knights from epic tales.   
  
His boy would make a handsome prince, were he not burdened with his father’s legacy.   
  
But she is still there at dinner, and Rum is surprised to see that Bae has even persuaded her to use their small tub out in the back to wash herself. Her skin is pale, in places more purple and red than pink, and her hair dark naturally and not just with dirt.    
  
She would be beautiful, were she not half-starved, if she did not appear to have attempted to best a troll in a fistfight.   
  
Bae wordlessly makes up a bed of straw for her by the fire, her second night in their home. He takes the old, half-toothless wooden comb his mother used, the one they keep for unknown reasons, and brushes the snarls from the girl’s hair, talks to her in his soothing voice, the one he uses on wounded animals when he finds them in the forest.   
  
His boy could turn lions to sleeping kittens, and all he does is treat the sick.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t know where he got that trait from, but it’s so much closer to bravery than anything he himself possesses.    
  
—-   
  
Belle wakes on the floor of the spinner’s home with pieces of straw in her hair, and the boy looking at her with wide, inquisitive eyes.   
  
The boy - Baelfire, if he can be believed - seems harmless enough. He combed her hair when she was too tired to move, and speaks in a quiet, friendly tone, tries not to scare her. He’s young enough that she doubts he could go to the guardhouse even if he wanted to: they would snatch him for a soldier as soon as look at him.   
  
The father is another matter.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin, his son had called him, but it seems far too grand a name for such a lowly creature. He practically cowers before her, and she lower even than he. She sleeps on his floor, and yet he looks at her with a kind of raw and helpless terror, as if she would eat him alive and tear him to shreds with her teeth.   
  
But Baelfire is looking at her, and smiling, and he is a sweet boy for all that it matters.    
  
She has to leave today. She has already stayed in this hovel of a home for too long, and the guards must be fast on her heels. If she leaves today, takes a route through the forest, then perhaps she can make it to Avonlea within a week. If she is where she thinks she is; if the father’s accent is any indication of the land she is in.   
  
From Avonlea she can head North, and maybe even make the mountains before winter. She has heard of villages there where one wears so many furs that identity is impossible. She would happily shovel snow and scavenge among ice wolves for the rest of her life, if it meant she could stay in one place without fear of discovery.   
  
But if Rumpelstiltskin is any indication, this is a Frontlands village.   
  
And the Frontlands are still enemy territory for Belle, however much of a backwater this hamlet may be. They are still unsafe for one such as she.   
  
So she smiles to Baelfire, and stands, and is pleased to discover that today her left leg has decided to work. The boy watches with the gladness of a compassionate sibling, and smiles, “Good morning, Rose. How’re you feeling today?”   
  
The sound of her new name is strange to Belle’s ears, but it’s better than nothing.   
  
Everyone has heard of Princess Belle, who doomed a city with her willful ways. Everyone has heard of the reward.   
  
So she smiles in reply, and chokes down the ashes on her tongue, and says, “Much better, thank you.” Her voice is a little more her own today, a little less of a reedy croak and something closer to resembling human. She had wondered if it would ever recover.   
  
“I made some tea,” he announces, and produces a metal cup, holds it out to her, “Chamomile, for soothing. It grows in the back, and papa says it helps him sometimes.”   
  
“That’s… nice of you,” she says, “Thank you.” she sinks into the chair, the nice one she woke up in the first night she was here, and Baelfire stays crouched at her feet, as if he’s cheerfully used to sitting on the dirty ground of his own home.    
  
“It’s fine. We had ours earlier, but Papa said to let you sleep.”   
  
She tries not to feel the racing alarm at that: what if Rumpelstiltskin left to fetch the guard? What if she was meant to sleep and sleep and awaken in chains? Baelfire can smile as sweet and well-meaning as anything, it means naught if his father shops her for coin at a moment’s notice.   
  
She has to leave. Now. Before they catch her again.   
  
Once upon a time, she landed in a woman’s home and shook from head to toe. She was less ragged then than she is now, but thinner, in more pain still. She cried for days and drank every cup the woman gave her, winced and ran from every crash, every small sound in the night.   
  
She had fought her way out of that house with her bare hands and a stolen knife.   
  
Belle doesn’t cry anymore.   
  
“Where is your papa, boy?” she asks, and he gestures with his head to the front door.   
  
“Outside spinning, we need more money this week to feed us all.”   
  
Another kind of pain, shallower but more immediate, flares to the surface. She is draining the resources of these peasants, these minor traders with nothing but woolen thread to pay for everything. Rumpelstiltskin would be right to shop her, to feed his boy. No one can be expected to feed a runner and starve their own children, and they owe her nothing.   
  
“I’ll leave today,” she promises, “Don’t worry. I will be gone by nightfall.”   
  
Baelfire looks at her, head cocked to one side, “Why?”   
  
“I… I have somewhere to be.” She lies, slowly. Except it’s not really a lie, not really, not when she has dreams of a quiet and snow covered town somewhere, of learning a trade and settling in alone and quiet. She could be Rose forever, and die an old maid.   
  
Can one still be an old maid having seen and done all that she has?   
  
“Where?”   
  
She cannot be sure if he sees through her as an adult or is curious like a child, he seems so much of both and neither. But he watches her, and she swallows, and finally says, “Ingrary.”   
  
“Wow,” he murmurs, nodding, “That’s a long way.”   
  
“Yep.” She nods, resolutely, “So I’d best be on my way.” She stands, and places the cup on the small table, and points herself toward the door. “Thank you, Baelfire, for your hospitality,” she smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes: it is strangely hard to start to move again after a day spent quiet and still and almost-safe. She turns for the door, and continues, softly, more to herself than to the boy, “It was very much appreciated.”   
  
Today she will leave, and never look back. Perhaps Ingary isn’t such a bad idea after all: perhaps she can find a realm-jumper to take her, and live her days in another world. That idea takes over from the mountains, a new dream to follow.   
  
All Belle has to cling to are dreams, so she holds them to her like ropes and life rafts, and refuses to ever let go.   
  
It is not terrifying, the world she faces. No one decides her fate but she, and this is what she chooses. She is strong enough for that, at least, if nothing more.   
  
She makes it out of the front door without Baelfire stopping her, and crashes into the spinner. She had not expected him to be there, truth be told: she had known in her soul that he had shopped her, that she was to fight her way out of here as out of every other town she’s stayed in too long.   
  
“Rose?” he doesn’t flinch, but he comes damn close, and she wonders what this man must have seen to make him so easily frightened.   
  
“Thank you for sharing your hearth,” she casts her eyes down, as he does, to show respect. No matter the perceived weakness in this man, she is still free and healed and fed, and this is his doing.   
  
“It was no matter.” He replies, and cautiously meets her eyes. Behind the ever-present fear, the same terror she herself works so hard to hide, there is something else, something desperate for simple humanity, for the respect of another human being. She imagines that few in this Frontlands village are even capable of offering that.   
  
“It was a great kindness,” she smiles, a proper smile, encouraging and grateful, and though she is clad in the same old and dirty rags she has worn for months, she is tempted to trace a curtsey, “I shall not forget it.”   
  
“You’re more than welcome, mistress,” he smiles back, and it’s a fleeting thing, but at least it’s honest. “No one should starve, not even runaways.”   
  
Her face clouds, she can feel it, but it doesn’t matter. She ran; she is homeless; she is hunted. Runaway is as good a term as any.   
  
“You and your son are good people, and I hope you may remain so.” She almost bows, but she holds herself back. Her voice alone is refined enough to rouse suspicion, no need to draw further attention to how out of place she truly is here.   
  
“I hope they don’t catch you,” he replies, “Whoever you are.”   
  
She nods once, stiffly, and holds out a hand to Rumpelstiltskin, “Farewell.”   
  
He takes it, his hand strong and warm for all his fear, and they shake for a long moment.   
  
But then their contact breaks, and she picks up the pack of bread and cheese Baelfire pressed into her hands before she left the house, and she’s walking off down the road with her head held high, headed for the forest and solitude once more.


	2. Chapter 2

Bae follows her, the girl who slept on their floor, as she vanishes into the woods. He follows because she couldn’t walk yesterday, and for all her smiles she is scared as papa and weaker still.   
  
Bae pretends that papa is strong enough to look after them, but Bae has stopped trying to lie and say that he’s not terrified as a rabbit in crosshairs. And it’s alright; it has to be. The world is a dark and scary place, and papa knows more of it than Bae does. He has his reasons to be so afraid.   
  
But Bae knows a wounded animal when she sleeps three feet from his bed, and so he follows her into the woods.   
  
She hums to herself as she walks, her little pack thrown over one shoulder, and she looks for all the world like she knows what she’s doing, like she’s on an adventure to seek her fortune, and not lost and alone and sick.   
  
Only her hacking cough, every now and then, and the little off-note to her songs give her away.   
  
She is as scared as papa when the soldiers come to the village, when he hustles Bae to hide in the house and pretends that he is a year younger than he truly is. When he shakes and gets that face, that horribly helpless face, the one that scares Bae far more than any big man with a sword ever could, more than any ogre.   
  
He watches as she starts to hobble, as her leg pains her and her coughing worsens. The sun is barely half way across the sky by the time she is dragging herself along, her aches and pains hurting her more with every step.   
  
She is sick, and scared, and more tired than two nights of sleep on the floor can cure.   
  
Bae knows that one day he will have to run. Either papa will haul him away from the soldiers, and they will flee together in cowardice and misplaced terror, or he will be called to fight and spend his life running from that same fear. One day, Bae will have to run, although to or from danger he does not know.   
  
But he knows that, when that day comes, he’d like someone to come and carry him to safety when he can no longer even crawl.   
  
So when Rose looks as if she will fall, he runs forward from his place amongst the trees and wraps her arm around his shoulder as he has done papa so many times, and feels her lean on him, her slight weight nothing at all even on his boyish shoulders.   
  
“Baelfire?” she asks, frowning in confusion, “What in seven hells are you doing here?”   
  
“Following you,” he replies, and his voice doesn’t shake, and she leans on him and for the moment he is a grown-up, a man taking care of an injured woman, and the overwhelmed boy is banished, “You’re sick.”   
  
“I’m fine,” she lies, and then coughs like a dying woman and entirely disproves her point.   
  
“Come on,” Bae says, handing her his papa’s spare staff that he’d brought from home, “We need to go home.”   
  
“I need to keep going,” she stands, looks at him, and she only wobbles a little bit on her weak, sickly knees, “You’re a sweet boy, really, but I need to go…”   
  
“No.” he puts his foot down; he will not allow this poor girl - for she is a girl, really, too slight and skinny and lost to be a woman - to lose herself and die for lack of care. Even if papa would prefer to keep their home closed, Bae lives there too. Rose is a runner, and one day he will be too, and that’s the end of it. “You’ll die, come home with me!”   
  
She looks down at him, as he starts to pull them home, and she looks close to tears, “They’ll find me.” she half-whispers, half-sobs, and Bae shakes his head firmly.   
  
“Papa says that they’ll find me, too. We can hide together.” He encourages, feeling her resolve breaking, as she sags against him and curls around his shoulders, allowing him to lead her back to the village.   
  
Papa will not be happy, but then papa hasn’t been happy in years, and if he will not let Bae go with his friends to defend the land, then he can at least allow them to protect one injured girl.   
  
—-  
  
Rumpelstiltskin finds himself sat in his home, sneaking glances at a frail and wounded woman and trying not to show it. He has no idea when Bae became the man between them, when he stopped giving a damn about people in need and started protecting only his own, but Rose is smiling and Bae is smiling back, and there is a new warmth to their home.   
  
She sleeps on her pile of straw, and Bae in his little curtained-off cubby, and Rum in his attic, and the house is quiet.   
  
But when he staggers downstairs in the wee small hours, another nightmare shredding at his soul and that same, sickening and ancient terror in his stomach, he finds her at the table staring at a roll of his thread with a little frown.   
  
“Are you alright, girl?” he asks, keeping his voice gruff: for all that Bae seems to enjoy having company other than his crippled old father, Rose is his guest and not Rum’s, and he doesn’t want to give the impression that she is welcomed by all the family.   
  
“Yes.” she replies, staring at the thread and wrapping it around her fingers, and back again, in an intricate little pattern, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb.”   
  
“How could you disturb anyone just sitting there?” He grabs his metal cup and fills it with the ale they still have from the market a week ago, takes a sip and lets the bitterness seep through, “You barely make a sound.”   
  
“Quiet as a mouse,” she smiles, but he doesn’t let himself respond, “I couldn’t sleep.”   
  
“Obviously.” He thinks about taking his ale up to bed with him, but decides against it. He warns Bae enough about keeping food and drink away from sleeping quarters, for fear of encouraging vermin, and it would be wrong to do so himself. So he takes an unwilling seat across from Rose, and watches her hands simply for something to do.   
  
“What’re you making?” He asks, after a long silence.   
  
“Cat’s cradle,” she looks up, flashes him another smile, and he sees that - beneath the dirt and hunger - she must have been rather astonishingly beautiful once upon a time, “I’ll put the thread back when I’m done: I just need something to do with my hands.”   
  
“Well,” he replies, stiffly, “Keep the thread, then. There’s plenty more.”   
  
He stands to replace the mug, and turns back to see her staring at him, all wide eyes and cautious smile, “Really?”   
  
He shrugs off her gratitude: he has no use for it, and she will hopefully be gone soon. She may be a pretty thing, and nice with Bae, but Rum has no trust for strangers and no kindness left to give. A roll of thread is nothing for the return of the privacy of his home. “It’s no matter: we have plenty more.”   
  
“Well… thank you.” she looks like he’s given her a roll of gold rather than simple string, smiling like the sun, and he gives her the briefest of smiles back.   
  
“Why…” he coughs, awkward all of a sudden, “Why did you come back?”   
  
She looks at him, her face unreadable amongst the cuts and bruises, the traces of dirt that cling to her cheekbones, “I wasn’t going to,” she admits, “I was going to get myself gone. But Baelfire changed my mind.”   
  
Rum casts a glance to the curtains that hide his son, and he can’t help the tender little smile he gets at the thought. Bravery gets boys like him killed before they’re grown, but it’s still a beautiful thing when it becomes a hand, reaching out to one in need.    
  
“He’s a good boy.” She says, and he nods in agreement, “Not many like him left.”   
  
There’s a heavy tone to her voice, as if it’s her fault, as if she drove them into battle herself, and slaughtered them with her bare hands. There’s something beyond the simple fear that he feels, something regretful and dark.   
  
“No.” He agrees, “I have to protect him,” he sounds like a beggar, pleading with her to see, willing her to understand that, if it comes to it, he will shop her in an instant to protect his son. “He’s all I have left.”   
  
She smiles, a kind and understanding smile, “Then you are a wealthy man, Rumpelstiltskin.”   
  
He stares at her, and thinks a moment, about how two people in the house - however scarred and battered, however crippled - may accomplish more than one alone. How Bae needs as much protection as he can get, “If they come for him, and I can’t-”   
  
“I’ll hide him,” she promises, “I most likely owe Baelfire my life, so I will protect his.”   
  
Rum nods, once, in gratitude for this most solemn of vows made in the dead and darkness of the night. And then he turns, and makes for the stairs to the attic.   
  
He returns to his bed silently, and after another half hour or so the light from downstairs dims, and the candles are extinguished, and Rose creeps to her straw mattress as well. He tries not to feel how much fuller - how much more  whole \- the house feels with a female presence, with someone other than him and Bae.   
  
The next day, he awakens and there is an odd smell in the house.   
  
He staggers downstairs, grabs his staff, and there is Bae, chatting happily with Rose over a plate of eggs.   
  
He’d known they had eggs - Morraine, a few doors down, has a soft spot for his Bae and she gets them eggs from her family’s coups when she can - but they smell far better than anything he or Bae could cobble together. “Good morning.” she greets, with a tired little smile, and he can see the bags beneath her eyes.   
  
“Indeed,” he grumbles, “Breakfast?”   
  
“Papa!” Bae turns and beams at him, “Rose made us scrambled eggs!”   
  
“I can see that, Bae.”   
  
“I just thought…” she has a loop of his thread wrapped around her thumb, and she fiddles with it absently, “You’re letting me sleep here, the least I can do is simple cookery.”   
  
“Is there any left?” He asks, and it’s as much gratitude as she’ll get out of him.   
  
“Plenty.” She smiles, stands and serves him a plate of eggs as if she’s a maid, their caretaker rather than their impromptu houseguest.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin finds himself sharing breakfast with his son and a rather pretty young woman, and somehow a small and flickering sense of contentment steals over him. For the first time in years, he does not feel afraid.   
  
And of course the terror returns the moment she stands to clear the plates, and the spell is broken. Of course every day brings them closer to the day when the ogres will come for Bae, to the moment they discover this woman’s true identity and the house crumbles around their ears. But for that one meal, those few strung-together moments, it is like the old days, before the wars began again, and the fear took root once more in his coward’s heart.   
  
—-  
  
Belle settles into a happy little routine, after that morning. She cooks their meals, silently cleans the hovel bit by bit, and stays inside as if there are dragons at the door. The guards may be interested in Baelfire in a few months, if the age is lowered once again and the war grows even more brutal and bloody, but it is she who would capture their true attention.   
  
They do not come to the spinner’s door, and she does not leave but to wash clothing in the wooden tub in the back yard, sealed off by trees and the walls of the house, and she feels a little bit safe.   
  
Only enough that she stops shaking, only enough that she can hold down her food.   
  
But still, it is progress.   
  
Of course, the moment Baelfire is taken - and no matter what she or the spinner do, the boy will see battle, of this she is certain - she too will be gone from this place. She stays for the sweet boy, who sits at her feet as she does her cat’s cradle, who eats her simple meals as if they are the King’s own banquets and smiles as she teaches him card games from her youth.    
  
She lets him win, but only enough that he’ll keep smiling, and not so much that he’ll notice and demand she play fair. For all her sins, Belle has no more idea how to play fair anymore than a spider knows how to start a fire. He does not ask where she learnt to play cards, or where she found the skill to cook. Bae does not ask, and she does not say, and Rumpelstiltskin watches from his wheel with quiet and terrified suspicion.    
  
And, increasingly, bewilderment. As her first week in their home passes, and still no guards come for his boy or for her, the spinner’s looks begin to tend more to the confused than the distrusting.   
  
They don’t really speak, Belle and Rumpelstiltskin, not after their quiet and strange little meeting her third night in his home. They act with a common civility and caution, as if the other might grow fangs and bite at any moment.    
  
But then, eight days after her failed attempt at leaving, they find themselves alone for the first time.   
  
Belle isn’t aware that Bae is even gone: the boy spends most of his time outside, helping his father, or at least close by. If he goes out regularly, she is certainly not aware of it. So when she comes out of the front door to hang some washing, and is hit by an abominable stench, she is unaware that she is only addressing Rumpelstiltskin when she curses, and cries “What in seven hells is that  smell ?”   
  
The spinner turns to her on his stool, frowning, almost a little offended, “It’s lanolin,” he replies, calmly, as if the answer is obvious, “For waterproofing.”   
  
“Oh.” She covers her mouth and nose with the corner of the skirt Bae borrowed for her from his friend’s family - her rags, for that is what her gown had become, lie under her mattress, awaiting repair - “It’s… pungent, isn’t it?”   
  
He looks entirely unimpressed, “Well, it does come from sheep, and they’re not known as the most fragrant of animals.” He sets his work down for a moment, leans on his staff to regard her closely, “You act as if you’ve never smelt it before. Surely they had spinners and clothmakers in your home?”   
  
Indeed, they had, but Belle had never had any reason to visit their workshops in person. And though she’d run through many villages before collapsing at this man’s door, she had never stopped long enough to see the craftsmen at work.   
  
“My father…” she pauses, trying to work out how not to lie and not to spread the truth, “Was not much given to allowing me out.”    
  
“Ah,” he nods, but his eyes are narrowed, and she can see that he has more to say on the subject, “You know, mistress, you may wear Morraine’s sister’s old clothes, Gods know she doesn’t need them anymore, but nothing is going to make me believe you grew up in a village such as this.”   
  
“And what is that supposed to mean?” she puts her free hand on her hip, levels a challenging glare at the spinner.   
  
“You know what I mean, mistress, don’t pretend that you don’t. You’re a lady of some kind, born and bred, and I don’t need the trouble a runaway princess could bring to me and my kin.”   
  
She takes a deep breath, and steps forward, coming to sit on Bae’s stool next to Rumpelstiltskin, looking at him hard. He is not her enemy; he and his son are her only friends in the world at this moment, and she needs it to stay that way. He is scared, as scared as she, and with far fewer chances at escape. And if they are to be wounded animals trapped together, then the least she can do is try for understanding, “I… I am sorry for coming to your door. I know I am most likely more trouble than I am worth.”   
  
His face creases a little, in something like guilt or sympathy, “I let you in,” he allows, “Part of it is my fault.”   
  
She laughs, and it’s a little and meaningless sound, but it feels good after so long without. Every new smile, every tiny chuckle that escapes her here, is a new blessing. A tiny crack in the massive wall that covers her skin.   
  
“I understand your concern, Rumpelstiltskin,” she says, “And the moment you feel that my presence is an immediate danger to Bae, I will leave without complaint.”   
  
“I…” He looks at her, as if he has no idea at all of what to say, and then, finally, nods his thanks, “Thank you, Mistress Rose. It’s much appreciated.”   
  
Her new name sounds profoundly wrong in such a moment of honesty, but she cannot bring herself to correct him. She is Belle, she always has been and always will be, but the less these peasants know of her true identity the safer they will be.    
  
“So,” she fiddles with her skirt, awkwardly, “Where’s Bae? Isn’t he usually here to help out?”   
  
“Oh,” Rumpelstiltskin waves a hand, a little dismissively, but there is a gleam in his brown eyes, “He’s at a friend’s house. Her mama knows more about words than I do, so she teaches them every few days or so.”   
  
“Ah,” she nods, smiles, catching his drift, “A friend? Would this friend perhaps be young and female?”   
  
“Well, Mistress Rose, I believe she might be.” He smiles, a doting and teasing grin, and it’s the most genuine smile she’s ever seen on his lined and worried face, “Bae’s taken quite a shine to her, truth be told.”   
  
“Really?” Belle giggles like a teenager discussing a suitor, and leans in toward the spinner like a conspirator, “A  shine you say? Is this the Morraine he’s so careful not to mention?”   
  
“Indeed, their lessons last longer every time. I’m starting to think he prefers their house to mine.”   
  
“Unless your house contains a pretty young girl, I think you’re fighting a losing battle,” she smiles, warmly, but the look in his eyes is strange. He stares at her face a moment, runs his eyes from hers and down to her mouth, and then back again, almost unconsciously.   
  
“Indeed,” he murmurs, “Losing. Definitely.”   
  
Everything, for one brief moment, is very, very still. Belle is suddenly intensely uncomfortable, staring into the deep brown eyes of her host, and she stands quickly, breaking the tension with a flip of her hand, “Will he be wanting lunch, anyway?”   
  
“No,” Rumpelstiltskin smiles, a little embarrassed although Belle stubbornly refuses to wonder why, “I think not.”   
  
“Alright, I’ll bring it out when it’s ready then.” She hurries herself away, back into the house where it is safe, and it is only when she is chopping a leek and some small potatoes for the lunch broth that she stops to curse herself her own foolish actions.   
  
The spinner would probably believe her to be offering herself, now, with the way she’d stared at him. All men think the same, she knows, trustworthy and kind until shown a flash of female interest; they all become monsters when the sin takes hold. Even sweet, kindly human men like her host. If she offered herself as payment for sanctuary here, offered to warm Rumpelstiltskin’s bed, then he would accept.   
  
And the knowledge hurts, because she has started to like the spinner and his son, view them as friends rather than figures to be skirted around and distrusted.    
  
This is why women marry, Belle knows: to gain something from their men before the sin takes hold, and the nice boys they took to the wedding turn to wild and selfish animals in the bedchamber.   
  
Even if Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes had been soft and warm when he looked at her, for all of that one moment.   
  
Belle feels only fear and the calm practicality that comes with its repression, no matter how sweet and innocent Bae’s smiles are, or how honest the words and eyes of his father.


	3. Chapter 3

Bae stares out of the window through most of his lesson. He’s interested in learning - papa cannot read, not really, and it’s useful for getting anywhere beyond the village - but he’s easily distracted, his mind on other things, these days.  
  
Morraine’s mother, Mistress Maisie, says he’s away with the fairies. Papa says he has a head full of sawdust, but he smiles when he says it, and Bae knows he wishes he could read too.  
  
It’s just more interesting today to look out of the window, to where papa and Rose talk by papa’s lanolin barrel, and watch them smiling at each other. They look like the older boys and girls used to, before the war took them, right before the village elders would have them married and children would come.  
  
Which is a bit funny, considering how they’re grown-ups and Bae’s never seen adults act this way. But then, all the adults Bae knows are married with children, or too old for such things.   
  
Morraine follows his gaze, sees Rose and papa out of the window and giggles, “That your new mama, then?” she teases.  
  
“No, shut up,” Bae grumbles, and shoves her lightly. She just giggles again, a pretty, sort of tinkling sound that Bae enjoys. He shoves her again, lightly, just to hear her laugh again.   
  
“Who is she?” Maisie asks, looking up from their practice sheets with a curious little smile, and Bae hears his papa’s warnings ringing in his head, “Haven’t seen her like around here in years.”  
  
“She’s just stopping through,” Bae proceeds cautiously: he loves Maisie and Morraine and their family, and trusts them, but Rose isn’t even her real name, he’s worked out that much, and if she won’t even tell them her name then surely she won’t want anything at all told outside their home, “She got hurt, so we’re helping her rest before she gets going again.”  
  
“Ah,” Maisie nods, and the topic is dropped. Baelfire can see that she understands more than she’s telling: every family has someone they’ve hidden, someone they’ve helped pass through. Some carry messages from the city to the front lines; others are refugees seeking sanctuary in another land.   
  


They have all smuggled a family member, a wounded soldier sick of the bloodshed.

  
Maisie doesn’t ask more, and Bae doesn’t say.  
  
But when he looks outside again, Rose is gone and papa is staring into the barrel, his whole shape still and bowed, quiet.   
  
Bae takes his notes an hour later, and hurries home, with Maisie’s final tasks for the week ringing in his ears. Papa would be better helped if his son could sit with him all day and help him spin, but one of them needs to know letters. Bae tries to spend every ninth day on learning, and have it done between sunrise and sunset, so that the others can be spent helping.

 

Bae would like to get out of the village one day, be someone more than the son of a crippled spinner, but that comes second to helping put food on the table.  
  
But still, the work is getting harder – Maisie would rather have them learning than working for all that their family is as poor as Bae’s – and he struggles.  
  
He glances up, sees Rose settling herself across the table from him and only wincing a little when she has to bend her bad leg. She pulls out her ever-present roll of thread, and winds it around her fingers, beginning the complex little dance she plays whenever she is sat still for any length of time at all.  
  


“What’re you doing, Bae?” She asks, after a long and companionable silence.

  
“Mistress Maisie gives me tasks to do after she lets me go,” he explains, “I have to write these words in sentences to show I understand them.”  
  
“And was this why you were absent this morning?”  
  
He nods, “Once every ninth day, Mistress Maisie teaches us letters. It used to be a lot easier than this, though.” He scowls back down at the slate in front of him, with his sentences half-written in careful script, unable to make head nor tail of the next word.  
  
“Do you want some help?” she offers, strangely quietly, and he glances up in surprise.  
  
“You know letters?” he asks, unable to keep the hope out of his voice: things will be so much easier with someone to help him at home, maybe he can even learn fast enough not to spend even one day away from helping papa.  
  
He’d miss being able to sit right next to Morraine for a whole morning, but he can still go and see her. He would miss having a reason to, though, and it’s suddenly so much harder to think of why he wants to meet with her, if not for lessons. But Rose is still looking at him, and he can think about Morraine later, when there’s no one to see him acting strangely.  
  
“Yes, I learnt when I was a little younger than you are.” She comes around the table to take a seat beside him, “Let me see.”  
  
He passes her the slate, and she looks over it for a moment, nodding and frowning. Then, calmly and patiently, step-by-step, Rose works him through every problem on the slate, until - after two hours of studying and repetition - he understands the exercises as if he’d set them himself.  
  
He beams when she turns away, before she can see him: maybe he can talk Morraine through it as Rose has him, go over there tomorrow afternoon before she goes back to the fields and offer to help.  
  
The idea makes his smile even wider, and he can’t smother it in time before Rose turns back to him, “See?” she smiles back, “Isn’t it lovely when you get it?”  
  
“Yes,” he nods, beaming, thinking of Morraine’s smile when he will show her how to impress her mama with her writing, “Lovely.”  
  
He can see papa through the window, catches his eye, and wonders why on earth he was watching them at all.  
  
He glances back at Rose, who is tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear, and then back at papa. He’s back to spinning, staring at the wool with intense and miserable concentration, but Bae still has to wonder: why were his eyes on them at all?  
  
—-  
  
Rumpelstiltskin cannot sleep, not after his nightmare. Tonight’s had been different, horrible in the same ways and yet so much worse. Tonight he had dreamed the soldiers coming and taking Bae, and Rose standing between the men and his son. Tonight he dreamed her neck slashed, her blood on the straw floor mat as Bae was dragged into the night.  
  
He’s never been concerned for anyone but himself and his son, not since his wife died. The thought is unsettling in the extreme: Rum cannot protect his own kin, let alone someone else as well.  
  
He rises from his bed, limps down the ladder and hobbles into the little kitchen area, makes himself a cup of chamomile tea to calm the churning in his stomach.  
  
His hands are shaking; they will not stop.  
  
He makes an awful racket trying to pour the tea into his metal cup, and he has to stop, take a deep breath and try to stop trembling so. Before he can begin to pour again, a warm hand covers his own, and he’s looking down into a bright, tired pair of blue eyes, “Here,” Rose murmurs, “Let me do that.” she cuts him off when he thinks about protesting, “Go sit down, you shouldn’t be stood up without your staff anyway.”  
  
His leg is throbbing something awful, so he does as she says and takes a seat, allowing her to pour two steaming mugs of the herbal brew and hand him his, taking a seat opposite him and smiling an exhausted smile.  
  
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” she takes a sip, breathes deep like the tea is all that keeps her upright.  
  
“No.” he shakes his head to cover the way he has been staring: a week of calm and quiet, and her bruises are healing nicely, her awful skinniness fading ever so slightly. A few months of such treatment, he thinks, and she would be a very beautiful woman.  
  
She is still a scarred and starved girl, but the potential itself, with that almost-happy little smile, is enough to take his breath away.  
  
And it’s the most terrified he’s ever felt, because he suddenly feels that he has even more to lose. She is a runner, and he knows for a fact that ‘Rose’ cannot be her real name, and what terrible things must she have seen and done to end up here, beaten and lost, hidden in the home of the town coward?  
  
She is a liability, and yet he fears her death as he fears his own.  
  
It is not only insane, but also dangerous and needlessly risky. He should demand that she leave, tomorrow, now that she is walking better and no longer coughing.   
  
But in the two weeks since she arrived, the house has become a little brighter, the food a little better, and Bae smiles more out of joy than to keep his papa from falling apart. Bae is less scared, more boyish, _as he should be_ , with Rose in their home.  
  
These are reasons to care if she stays or leaves.  
  
The fact that they sit in companionable silence, sipping their chamomile, that she neither derides him for his terrified sleeplessness nor offers cloying, pitying kindness, should play no part.  
  
This is not about what he needs: this is about Bae. It has always been and will always be about Bae.  
  
But still, he reaches a hand out when hers sprawls on the table, and covers her fingers with his own. She stares at their hands in shock, eyes wide, and darts from his fingers to his face and back again.  
  
But she doesn’t pull away, even when he flexes his knuckles slightly to gently squeeze her flesh in comfort, even when he smiles with his eyes as he does it. She doesn’t smile back, too busy trying not to show an ounce of surprise or fear - and that she is _afraid_ of him is so laughable he cannot believe it can be true - but her hand doesn’t move from beneath his.  
  
If he is to feel more for her than annoyance at her presence and fear for the havoc it will bring, then he might as well make an attempt at friendship.  
  
They part for their separate beds minutes or hours later with a murmured ‘goodnight’, and he definitely does not spend the rest of his time awake staring at the rafters, remembering the feeling of her skin against his, and the little smile that played around her lips when she thought he wasn’t looking.  
  
They don’t mention it the next morning: she sets to work cleaning the beams above his bed - she swears she heard something moving up there yesterday, and she will find it - and he has his spinning, with Bae at his side.   
  
Bae is watching him oddly as he spins, and finally he looks at the boy and asks, exasperated, “What, son? Have I grown an extra head?”  
  
“No,” Bae laughs, “You just look… funny today, that’s all.”  
  
“I didn’t sleep well.” Rum replies, and goes back to his spinning, hoping his gruff tone will discourage any further questioning.

“How come?” Bae frowns, head cocked to one side, “Was it that thing Rose said she saw in the rafters?”

“No, Bae,” he sighs, “I was having the nightmares again. The bad ones.”

“Oh.” Bae looks down, a little ashamed, and why wouldn’t he be with a father who is afraid of his own bloody _shadow_? “Me too.”

It’s the first time Rum has ever heard his son admit to such things, “Bae?” He stops spinning and turns to look at his son, unable to feel anything beyond surprise and deep concern.

“I dreamed they came for Morraine,” he admits, looking down at his hands around his roll of twine, “They dragged her away, and the guards were looking at her horribly, and she was screaming but none of us could move… I couldn’t save her.”

And this is the worst part, Rumpelstiltskin knows, about this war. Young boys, near-men but not near enough, discover love only to learn with it the soul-shredding fear of loss, the immediate terror of separation. Even if he saves Bae, when the time comes, he cannot save the girl with him, and now his poor boy’s heart will ache.

But then, when they run, Rose will have to leave them, too.

Two weeks in their home, and Rum regrets allowing her so close to them so fast. Bae will miss her, when she’s gone, and Rum is not indifferent either. His thoughts return for the hundredth time that day to the feeling of her slim little hand under his, the warmth that ran up his arm and into every inch of his body at the small contact, at the fact that she didn’t shift away.

He pauses his spinning, and reaches around to wrap an arm around his son’s shoulders. Bae curls into him, still so small for all that he is old beyond his years, and hides his face in his father’s shoulder. Rum strokes his hair with his free hand, soothingly, trying to hold himself stronger than he feels.

He looks up, over Bae’s head, and sees Rose’s face in the window. She is watching them with an expression so soft and tender, it seems entirely out of place on her hard face.

But then it is gone, and she is smiling her closed-off, guarded smile, and he responds in kind.

He squashes the strange feeling that had grown in him, the sense of completeness and family: as if they are mother and father and child, and she is more than a stranger with a false name and unexplained scars on her face; as if they _belong_.

They don’t speak much over dinner that night, Bae doing most of the talking. He tells his father excitedly about the new words he’d learnt to write, how he plans to teach some of the other children left in the village – he mentions no names, and Rum and Rose share a meaningful glance across the table.

They none of them comment on how tired they all look, the sleeplessness they share.

Bae, child that he is, stumbles to bed and is dead to the world within minutes, the nightmares of the previous night taking a more immediate strain than on the adults in the house. They are used to insomnia, used to nightmares and unceasing fright.

Rum and Rose are left by the fire: she on Bae’s little wooden stool Rum in the armchair. He had offered her the chair, but she had refused, plonking herself down on the stool and refusing to move. He is learning that it’s easier not to argue when the damned woman has made up her mind.

She pulls out her thread from her apron pocket, and begins her cat’s cradle, watching intently as she adds new twists and flicks of her fingers, weaves new patterns, ever more complex and difficult to understand.

He is trying not to watch, trying to focus on repairing one of Bae’s old tunics, but his practiced fingers can complete the task with or without his concentration and his eyes are inevitably drawn back to her hands.

They are hypnotic, mesmerising, and he would much rather watch her than pretend she didn’t exist.

“Why do you weave so much?” he asks, when the question presents itself in his mind, and his curiosity becomes undeniable.

“I’m sorry?” she glances up, startled by the sudden interruption of their silence.

“Your string,” he gestures with one hand, “You’re always making those patterns with it. I wondered why.”

“Oh,” she smiles, shakes her head, but there’s something more than humour in her eyes; something sadder, darker, as complicated and twisted as her weaving, “I like to watch the thread; it helps me to forget.”

“Forget what?” he asks, as if it’s not a horribly obtrusive question, as if he wants to know something that could surely get him killed.

She frowns for a moment at her fingers, and with one clever little twist of her index finger the whole mess falls apart. She looks up, smiles a practiced, airy little smile “I guess it worked.” She giggles at his expression, and he after a moment he follows, her laugh rich and infectious.

Their laughter dies down into peaceful smiling, and they are gazing at each other. Rumpelstiltskin feels almost light, moonstruck and giddy for all that he is old and hard and creaking.

Their silence is comfortable, heavy and warm; her string doesn’t move and neither does his needle.

He could kiss every scar on her face, and in that moment he believes she’d let him.

Then there is a knock on the door, and everything becomes still and tense within seconds. They share a terrified, wide-eyed look, and wordlessly she clambers into the little cubby where she sleeps, hides herself beneath the blankets so she blends with the other haphazard piles of cloth.

Rumpelstiltskin limps to the door, his stomach in horrible knots, and creaks it open slowly, as if he cares not who waits on the other side.

The soldiers form looming, nightmarish shadows in their dark leather clothing, and they look him up and down, smirk at his staff and the terror lost from his face but ever-present in his eyes, “Good evening, brother.”

“Good evening.” He bobs his head in recognition of the manners, and wonders what on earth they could want with him if they choose to be _polite_ , “Is something wrong?”

“We need to ask a few questions, it won’t take a moment.” They make to come inside, but Rum stands in the way, “My son is only ten years old,” he explains, “and he sleeps poorly. Can we talk outside?”

“Of course.” He is surprised by their acquiescence, and even though his legs shake, he walks at a decent pace with them to the road beyond his home.

“We’re asking everybody,” the leader begins, “Every village on this road. Have you seen this woman?” He holds up a roughly drawn wanted poster, the kind stuck to tree trunks in towns where thieves and bandits roam. Rum hasn’t seen one since his last visit to Longbourne, but he knows the face too well.

Rose stares back at him, but the words are too complicated for Rum to read, and the soldier sighs, “Can you understand it, brother?”

The reward is enough to feed him and his son until Bae is fifty. And yet all Rum feels is a churning, terrifying anxiety, for what if they discover her? What will they do to him, to Bae, to _her_?

“I’m afraid not.” He replies, and now he is glad that the terror was there already, for they will not notice the new tremor in his voice,

“She is Princess Belle, the daughter of Duke Maurice of the Frontlands, wanted for murder and high treason.” The soldier provides, “She’s a runaway, and we believe she may have passed through here.”

“I barely leave my home,” Rumpelstiltskin looks up pleadingly, uses his lowly peasant status and his own raw fear to mask his lies, “It’s just me and my boy, and we’ve seen nothing.”

“Hmm,” the soldier’s face is unreadable for a moment, scrutinising, and Rum half-grovells. The soldier straightens, after a long moment, and nods dismissively, “We’ll be in town for the next week or so, maybe longer. If you hear anything, there is a great reward for information.”

Rumpelstiltskin nods, makes a hasty and unpractised little bow, and hurries back inside when the soldier waves him away.

He is breathing hard, his heart pounding, and he sinks into his armchair with only a little bit of relief.

“What did they want?” his runner asks as she comes out of her hiding place.

“You, dearie.” He sighs, and he’s too tired, too damn _tired_ , to even be afraid anymore. “Or should that be Your Highness, _Belle_?”

She swallows, hard, and he tries to see past the cuts and bruises, the still-too-skinny frame and the lank, dirty hair. He looks past the runaway, the would-be peasant, and tries to see a princess. But she was always too good for this place, too pretty and pleasant, her walk too regal and her spine too strong.

“You… you didn’t tell them? I’m still safe here?”

“No, I didn’t tell them. You’re hidden for now.” He looks down, unable to meet her eyes, still incapable of understanding why he hadn’t shopped her when the rewards were so great, “But you’d better start talking, dearie, if you wish to remain that way.”


	4. Chapter 4

“You shouldn’t know anything about me.” Belle says, quietly, and for once everything she says is the truth, “It’s dangerous.”   
  
He laughs, a low and broken sound, the hollow note of a man beyond fear and sadness and pain, too tired to do more than smile, “I’ve sheltered an apparent fugitive for the past fortnight. I think the ship has sailed on dangerous.”   
  
“I promised,” She insists, “I promised to leave if my presence became a threat to Bae.”   
  
“That you did, dear,” he nods, “But they’re stationed everywhere from here to Longbourne, by my reckoning, and you’re safer here.”   
  
That brings her up short. Their peaceful truce in the house has been lovely, but she had not fooled herself to think that it meant he could possibly care for her safety, her comfort, “You… you would keep me?”   
  
“I’ll make you a… deal,” he says, the tricky words somehow alien and new on his lips, “You may stay here in town, sleep on the straw as you have done… and in return, you share your tale.”   
  
She doesn’t want to say yes. Not because she doesn’t want to stay here – because who wouldn’t want a safe, warm bed in a sweet little home, with such friends as these? – but because her tale is not one made to be shared. It is the kind whispered in corners and murmured in scandalised voices in taverns. It is the kind people have died rather than remember.   
  
Belle is a survivor, but only just.   
  
“I…” she sighs, “You know who I am! The guards told you some, and you have heard the rest.”   
  
“I hardly believe half of what comes through here, dearie.” He says, but there’s a gentler tone to his voice, “To them you are a prince-slaying, deal-breaking succubus, and I cannot believe that can be true.”   
  
“Succubus might be an overstatement,” she admits, and although her chin is raised and her eyes are open her voice is tiny.   
  
“And the rest?”   
  
“I killed a prince, I fell from a tower, and here I am.” She says, simply, because what more is there to say?   
  
Is she to tell this kindly, innocent man the story of her war wounds? How she was traded as chattel to an ogre prince, and went willingly, even gratefully to save her kingdom? How she was promised the safety of her friends, her family, and yet forgot to bargain for her own?   
  
Is she to relive the moments when she realised her mistake, or the many nights after when the regret grew sharper; must she tell him of her humiliations, dealt to her by her new husband’s fists, his knives and torments? Or share with Rumpelstiltskin the feeling of her husband’s blood, warm and thick and dark blue, pouring from his throat and over her hands as she slashed and tore at his vulnerable flesh…   
  
No.   
  
To tell him would be to poison, to wound and strike at the basis of what they are.   
  
He is as close to a friend as a runner like her could hope to find, and she cannot have him look upon her with pity, knowing all that she has done, all that has been done to her.   
  
And who is to say that he would even take her side, knowing the marriage vows she made, the gifts she accepted? Rumpelstiltskin is a kindly spinner to his son and his neighbours, for all his cowardice, but he is still a man. And men tend to group together, she has found, when faced with a disobedient woman.   
  
She murdered her husband and leapt from the tower.   
  
A haystack and a prayer broke her fall.   
  
“And is it true?” he prompts, “That the ogre war-”   
  
“Was finished by my marriage and restarted by its ending?” she finishes, “Yes. I believe so. Yes.”   
  
“You-” he stares at her, wide eyes and slack jaw, “ _ You  _ started this?”   
  
She hates him so much, in that moment, that she could strangle him with his own thread. Because she is a murderess, a monster, responsible for the deaths of a hundred thousand child soldiers who have died for her sins, and that is all she will ever be. But how dare he accuse her, knowing her as he does, without knowing the story? How dare he remind her of who she really is, when his kindness allows her to so easily forget?   
  
“The ogres started this,” she corrects, and tries to keep her voice under control, “They bombarded our walls and pillaged our villages. I didn’t force them to do that.”   
  
“You married to save us?”   
  
“Why else would a princess live with a monster, if not to save her people?” she smiles so sadly she feels tears must soon follow, because he has not thrown her out, and he is not truly accusing her for all his accusations.   
  
“Then I believe you killed him for a good reason.” He looks at her, and the fear in his eyes is muted by something else, something so close to trust she can hardly breathe for it.   
  
“I did.” She murmurs, and that is that.   
  
Silence reigns, sad and tired but somehow new, fresh and awkward as lamb’s feet.   
  
“If Bae is taken,” he says, after a long moment, “Then-”   
  
“You will shop me without a word, I know.” She nods, “I understand.”   
  
“No,” he shakes his head, smiles, “Do you promise to help to retrieve him? You killed an ogre with your bare hands, you’re far braver than I.”   
  
“I-” she catches her breath, because ‘brave’ is a word for knights and heroes and not blood-stained brides, “Yes. I promise.”   
  
“Then your name is  _ Rose _ , Belle,” he smiles, “Even if you and I know different. And you are my guest.”   
  
“Why would you do that?” she wants to cry, her eyes stinging and pulse racing. He doesn’t know everything, not even close, but he’s heard the worst of her and still offers her protection, this coward who is hardly a man even in his own household.   
  
“I ran from a war myself, Princess,” he admits, “A long time ago, the last time the ogres made real trouble, before the peace accords. I ran from their battlefield because I saw what they did to their victims, to the women and children and men alike. If you married one…” he shudders, “I’m the last man on earth to blame someone for running for their life; I’m just awed that you killed the bastard first.”   
  
“I’m still running.” She says, her voice so tiny and broken she can barely recognise it.   
  
He nods, understanding, “So am I.”   
  
She reaches up from her stool when she sees his hands shaking, sees how the tremors so perfectly match her own. Her arms come around his shoulders, even though she fears his touch, even though it makes her heart race with the urge to run far and fast and to never, ever stop.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin is not an ogre, no matter how little her body seems to care for the distinction. Men are all monsters beneath their skin, but Rumpelstiltskin is more scared and frightened rabbit than man, and so she holds him close and allows him to do the same to her. His arms come under her arms, around her ribs, and his head rests in the side of her neck.   
  
Just for a moment, just until her skin crawls and her heart races and she feels she must break free.   
  
It’s not his fault; she genuinely wants to enjoy the feeling of his arms around her, the warmth and the friendship and security. And maybe one day she’ll be able to, maybe one day she’ll break through.   
  
But not today; not tonight.   
  
She pulls away, and he stares up at her, entirely stunned.   
  
“I need to get some sleep,” she says, quietly, not acknowledging the way her hands hold his shoulders, the warmth of him under her palms, “You should too.”   
  
He nods, a little dazedly, and she wonders when the last time was that someone held him who wasn’t Baelfire. He stands slowly as she turns her back to him, and she hears his halting footsteps on the rough floor as he leaves her.   
  
She is still shaking, still terrified, but exhausted. Perhaps she will sleep tonight; perhaps the nightmares will leave her in peace.   
  
They don’t, and she wakes more than once in the night with a scream on her lips and her blankets twisted from her violent thrashing, but it is still a better night than the one before. Even with the soldiers no more than a shout away, even with her identity revealed and her story half-told.   
  
Bae wakes her in the morning with a cup of chamomile tea in his hands. “Papa said you needed it this morning.” he explains, and she smiles gratefully, doesn’t question as she takes it in her hands.   
  
The brew is warm and soothing, calming after the battles of her dreams, and she sits up on her straw mattress as Bae settles himself on the floor beside her, legs crossed.    
“And why does he think I need care this morning, Bae?” she asks, quietly, hoping to judge how much of the story the boy has been told.   
  
“He said the soldiers came last night, that they’re looking for you,” he replies, “He said… your name isn’t Rose, is it? It’s Belle.”   
  
“Yes, I’m sorry for the lie. And sometimes people bow, but not so much anymore.” she says, surprised by the dry tone of her voice. Perhaps she has lived as a runaway so long that her past is now a twisted joke; perhaps it would feel awful and wrong to be called ‘princess’ and bowed to, her hand kissed, once more.   
  
“They’ll find you.” he tells her, as if she does not already know, “Soon. People don’t keep quiet in the village.”   
  
“I doubt I look much like my picture anymore,” she replies, with another of those wry little smiles, and perhaps there was something in her tea to make her so calm this morning, “And I stay in here almost all the time.”   
  
“Yeah, but…” Bae looks at her, as if he has a secret he’s scared to share, as if he’s afraid he’ll sound foolish, “Still. You’re a girl in our house, people will talk.”   
  
“I’m a runner, Bae,” she points out, gently, “Anyone sees me, princess or no, they’ll shop me. This is how it goes.”   
  
“No, but see, I had an idea.” Bae fidgets with a piece of straw, winding it between his fingers, “You need to be part of the family, you know, meant to be here. You can put scarves and stuff on your head, not talk to people. Morraine’s sister… she did that when she ran, before they put her back in the army. It worked until she told someone she liked and he shopped her.”   
  
“I don’t think anyone would believe I was your older sister, Bae,” she smiles, sadly, “And you and your papa have been here forever: they must know everyone you’re related to.”   
  
“Not that kind of family,” he twists and twists the straw, nervous and uncomfortable, “The other kind. The… the married kind.”   
  
“Bae!” she gasps, not sure of how to accept or reject a marriage proposal from a sweet thirteen-year old boy. “I’m a little old for you, don’t you think? And what about Morraine?”   
  
“Old for-” his eyes widen, “No! No, not me!” he laughs, a little breathlessly, “I meant… I meant papa. I mean, mama died years ago, and I don’t even really remember her, and he likes you, and… no one would think twice about a wife from another village, met at the market in Longbourne. Then you could stay.”   
  
She has no idea of how to respond to that.   
  
She never thought she’d marry again, never wanted to, not even for a second. Her last husband, her last turn in the marital bed - for, of course, that was what Rumpelstiltskin would gain from this - had been closer to hell than any true battlefield. There was no dignity in it, no kindness or peace.    
  
And yet he had let go the night before, when she held him for just a moment. He had seemed so sweetly astonished, where she had half-expected him to catch her about the waist, to become the demon she kept waiting to see in his eyes and defile her.   
  
The idea of Rumpelstiltskin defiling  _ anybody _ is absurdly funny, and yet her pulse races and her blood runs cold, her body accepting the idea as already-proven fact.    
  
Luckily, she is saved from Bae’s expectant eyes by the footsteps of his father, coming in from outside and dusting off his hands, “You making a nuisance of yourself, boy?”   
  
“No, papa,” he looks up, “I was just telling Belle my idea.”   
  
“Oh, your idea for what?”   
  
She is surprised: she would have expected Bae to approach his father with this plan first, and come to her - the relative stranger in his life - second. “He’s concerned about the soldiers.”   
  
“Ah, yes,” he fiddles - a gesture that is uncannily similar to his son’s - with his sleeve, “I ah, I told him most of the details. I thought he ought to know who he shares a house with.”   
  
She nods, “Yes, he ought.” she sighs, then smiles cautiously, “He has an idea.” she puts a hand on Bae’s arm, encouraging him because the Gods know she’s not going to say anything if he won’t, “Go ahead, Bae.”   
  
Bae looks like he might be sick. She almost laughs, entirely inappropriately, at the poor boy’s discomfort: this has to be one of the most awkward conversations of his life, asking his father to remarry, and at least it gives her some time to think it over.   
  
“I ah… I thought…” he stumbles, then - brave child that he is, braver than she or his father - raises his chin and speaks as Rumpelstiltskin takes a seat, “The town will notice her, after a while, and we don’t have a reason for her to be here.”   
  
Rumpelstiltskin nods, “Yes, I suppose discretion is needed. We don’t want anything to draw the soldiers near.”   
  
“Exactly,” Bae nods, “So… she needs to be accepted. Part of the family, you know?”   
  
Rumpelstiltskin frowns, cocks his head to one side, “She’s a mite too old for me to adopt her, Bae, for all you might want a sibling-”   
  
“No,” Belle shakes her head, letting the poor boy out of his misery. This, for all that it was Bae’s idea, is between her and Rumpelstiltskin, and it seems somehow wrong to make Bae be the one to say it aloud, “No, he means another kind of legal bond. He means for us to marry.”    
  
She says it quietly, calmly, betrays none of the roaring, terrified blood in her ears or the painful clenching in her stomach. Somehow, it would have felt less awful to simply offer herself, her body, as payment for shelter. She has bargained her hand away for safety before, and marriage is so much deeper, so much more important and more constraining, than simply warming a man’s bed would appear to be.   
  
But the soldiers will haul her back, and her father and her once-in laws will do far worse to her than Rumpelstiltskin ever could. And perhaps he would be a decent husband, the kind who is good to his wife as her father was to her mother. Perhaps there truly is no demon lurking in his soul.   
  
She doesn’t know if she believes that; doesn’t know if she even can after all she remembers. But she’s willing to try, if the reward is the ability to rest for a while longer here.   
  
This is the better option, so if he agrees, so shall she.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin stares at her, dumbstruck, eyes wide and jaw loose. He glances from her to Bae and back again, and finally settles his wild eyes on his son “This was your idea, Bae?” his voice shakes a little, and she wonders if he’s not just as scared and nervous as she is.   
  
Bae nods, but his eyes stay on the little knotted straw in his hands, “Yes, papa. I thought it would help her to blend in, so people won’t ask questions.”   
  
“Right,” Rumpelstiltskin runs a hand through his hair, down over his face, slumped in his armchair as if entirely unsure even of how to stand anymore. After a long moment, he looks down at Belle, sat cross-legged on the straw, “And how do you feel about this plan?”   
  
“I-” she doesn’t know how to phrase it, and though she is fugitive royalty curled in a peasant’s blankets, and he is a spinner with a coward’s heart, she suddenly feels she is a princess again, stood in her father’s hall, offered a deal with a monster, “I don’t know. He’s right, though: I don’t blend in, and it makes me a liability.”   
  
“Yes…” he murmurs, and she feels she’s holding her breath. There are, she decides, far worse men she could call husband. Rumpelstiltskin is kind, sweet, gentle with her and with his son. Surely he could not lose all of that, even when faced with a woman in his bed? Surely the man who trusted her last night, who held her close and then willingly let go, could not become such a monster as she imagines.   
  
Her head must rule her scared, fragile, battered little heart, and objectively she knows that this is a good solution.   
  
He sighs, “Bae, would you… I think Morraine was calling you outside. I came in to tell you.”   
  
Bae looks between them, sees their gazes held, and smiles as if he knows exactly what is happening here, “Alright, papa, I’ll be just outside.”   
  
Bae almost runs out of the house, and Belle is left to wonder how exactly she and Rumpelstiltskin are supposed to communicate without the boy as a conduit.   
  
“Belle,” he murmurs, as soon as the boy is gone, “We can find another way, really, I-”   
  
“No.” she shakes her head, unsure of what she’s doing but unable to think of any other way, “This is it, this is the solution. I can’t sleep on the floor and hide forever: people will ask questions and the soldiers will answer them. Either I run or I become part of the scenery.”   
  
“By marrying?” he sounds almost begging, and for the first time she has to wonder whether this is his idea of a good marriage either. He’d have every right to reject her, knowing what she did to her last husband. “I couldn’t force that on you, no. Your debt was paid with your honesty last night, I can’t ask more of you.”   
  
He worries for  _ her _ ? The notion seems ridiculous: if anything, she is a major imposition on  _ his _ life, and marriage for any reason would only make it worse. She laughs, quietly, a little bitterly, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I have done this before, you know, and princesses are born and bred to marry for advantage rather than for… other reasons.”   
  
“Oh,” he nods, and suddenly she wonders if that was hurtful, if she has offended him by implying that he would not be her choice of husband. “Well, yes, I hadn’t considered that.”   
  
She hurries to try to set it right, “I don’t mean that I would find you objectionable!” she assures, and it’s true: of all the men she’s met who became suitors, Rumpelstiltskin is among her favourites. His eyes are so dark and brown, warm even when he’s terrified, and he has never been anything less than honest with her. His love for his son and his sweet, shy smiles when he is caught with his guard down are even endearing, and she is fond of him, “I only mean… we’ve only known each other two weeks, and I understand your concern, but that’s not why I’m not wild about the idea.”   
  
“Then why, dear? What is it that puts you off?”   
  
“I…” she stares at him, the disappointment in his tone finally hitting her, “You can’t want to be saddled with a wife of convenience, surely!”    
  
His expression mimics her own, so much so that she is inclined to laugh, “A wife of…” he takes a deep breath, “Okay, convenience, if that is the word you wish to use. Belle, you… you help my son with his learning, you cook for us and clean for us… we… I mean, Bae likes having you here, and it is hardly as if I was ever going to remarry for any other reason. Not after -” he stops, shakes his head, “Marriage to you would not be an unpleasant prospect, believe me.”   
  
“Alright, then,” she nods, chooses to be determined and resolute rather than small, soft and scared, “So long as it will not inconvenience you, then I believe Bae’s plan is a good one.”   
  
“Then you will-” he pauses, frowns, and the self-loathing, the desperation for simple acceptance is so clear on his face that she almost reaches out to him again.   
  
“I will marry you.” She smiles, and she wonders why her eyes sting, why she is so close to tears. She barely notices, through her own fight to keep her emotion at bay, that Rumpelstiltskin appears to do the same.


	5. Chapter 5

Rumpelstiltskin spends the rest of the day in a mindless, almost entirely unthinking daze.  
  
She said yes.  
  
To a question he hadn’t even really been asking. A woman he’d known two weeks, been almost-friends with for all of a few days… and now she is to be his wife.  
  
His wife.  
  
He tries to keep the knots out of his stomach, tries to stop himself from marching into his own home and shaking her, perhaps falling on his knees and begging her, to change her mind. She cannot marry him, and he cannot marry her.   
  
She is bright, even beneath the dirt, beautiful even with her scars and the hollowness to her cheeks. And brave, definitely and wonderfully and utterly horribly brave. This is a woman who killed an ogre prince, started a war and leapt from a tower. She fell from a castle window and survived only by pure luck.  
  
Did she expect to live this long? Does she expect to survive much further than she already has?  
  
Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t know how to cope with someone like that. It had been easier when she was a nameless, unknown runner, a shapeless guest in his home, ready to run at any moment.  
  
Now he has to accept who and what she is; now he is expected to bind her to him forever.  
  
It isn’t that he doesn’t want her for a wife: he never really thought of being a husband again, but if Bae likes her and it keeps them all a little safer than who is he to complain?   
  
It is a trifling and silly thing to worry for, when the world is at war and the wolves are at the gate, but it is his own heart he fears for most.

For how will he survive when he sees the disappointment in her eyes, when it dawns on her that once she was a princess, and now she is trapped here? That once she was the daughter of a Duke with a royal household and handsome princes at her beck and call, and now she marries a lame and friendless spinner?  
  
Even if the guards fall for it, and eventually move on, surely she will leave them sooner or later.  
  
How long before he becomes attached to the warmth of good food on the table, the clean little flourishes she brings to their home, and has to bid them goodbye?  
  
How long before Bae begins to think of her as a mother, as part of the family, and her leaving breaks his little heart once more?  
  
Marrying her is the worst idea imaginable, and yet the ceremony has been confirmed with the elders as occurring in three days - no one puts things off, no one waits anymore, not these days, not with the war - and Rum cannot think of a thing to say to stop it.  
  
He can’t think of a reason not to want her for a wife, and yet he doesn’t want to marry her.  
  
It’s a mess inside his head, and so he spins and spins like his life depends upon it.  
  
For two days, he is barely capable of keeping his eyes open and his mouth shut. He keeps replaying their morning together, the morning her eyes brightened with hope and she agreed to this foolish escapade. She had looked ready to start crying: she wasn’t the only one.  
  
For two days, he spins and accepts the congratulations of village folk he swore spat when his name was mentioned. They have seen the pretty thing staying with him, and he suspects that they are more thankful that his son will have a guardian other than him - for while he is disliked in the village, it would take an exceptionally cruel heart to disapprove of Bae - than they are for his upcoming nuptials.  
  
Belle avoids him, or perhaps he avoids her. He’s glad of it, in any case: to speak to her would be to ask a hundred times for her to change her mind, to remind her that she doesn’t love him, nor he her, and that this could be a horrible mistake.  
  
But they only see each other at meal times, when Bae is there and too busy talking over specifics for the actual wedding for anything else to be discussed. With both bride and groom awkward and stunned into silence, it falls to his thirteen-year-old son to deal with the details.  
  
Bae borrows more clothes from Morraine, this time her mother’s second-best dress. It is green, not white, for which they apologise, but then Rum is the only man for miles to know that white would be an inappropriate colour anyway.  
  
Morraine visits the morning of the wedding. Rum has sat at his wheel since the sun rose, afraid to death of everything but the motion and the click of the spindle.  
  
He cannot be a husband again, he just _can’t_.  
  
He supposes, cynically, that at least he cannot to a worse job than his predecessor. He has seen - oh, gods, how he has seen - the work of ogres who play with their food. He cannot imagine the suffering one could be forced to endure if married to one.  
  
Perhaps between them, he and Bae can convince her to stay with them forever. Perhaps she will be as much a wife as he intends to be a husband. He has to admit that the prospect of another adult, and one as brave and as caring as she is, to protect his son from the worst of the coming years when he cannot is a tempting one.  
  
But the knots in his stomach are many and tangled, and his legs - both the bad and the good - shake when Bae comes to fetch him inside.  
  
Belle is nowhere to be seen - the village is ensuring that this is a quiet affair, but it must still be performed in the temple, and she has left already - so Rum changes quickly into his best tunic and breeches, the boots that have the fewest holes in them.  
  
He hasn’t dressed this way since his first wife’s funeral, when they brought Trassia’s broken body back to him. She had fallen from her horse, and her new lover had fled rather than care for her.  
  
Her neck was broken anyway, there was nothing to be done.  
  
It feels somehow appropriate, and the burden of memory sobers him as he goes. He will not disappoint Belle the way he did Trassia. He will be a better man, this time, if only for Bae’s sake.  
  
Belle waits for him in the temple, with the few villagers who have come for Bae’s sake or for the spectacle. It is a sham of a ceremony, as the preacher speaks the old words of love, devotion, honour and sacrifice to a pair who feel nothing but the barest of friendships for each other.  
  
Belle smiles encouragingly, and holds his hands, and he tries to draw some of her bravery into himself. He feels every part of him shaking, fear and horror and a strange, unfurling kind of happiness warring beneath his skin.  
  
Of course there are no finely crafted golden rings in this village, no little gemstones or delicate silver jewllery. The blacksmith sold him - in his one act of preparation, besides actually showing up - a pair of little steel bands, and Rum supposes that if they don’t fit they can wear them as pendants, or perhaps not at all.  
  
But the smaller of the pair slides onto her finger with ease, and it is only his they have a little trouble with. She tries to get it past his knuckle and fails, and finally looks at him with a kind of embarrassed warmth as she gives up.  
  
He takes the ring from her, and with her fingertips next to his on the metal he slips it onto his smallest finger. It is precarious, ready to slip off at any moment, and she gives a silent little giggle, her breath against his face.  
  
It is the first peaceful, tender moment of the whole ceremony, but it keeps the smile on his face and the fear from showing in his eyes.  
  
There are worse people to marry than this pretty, smiling woman. There are cruel matrons and flighty little girls, and yet he somehow found a brave and gentle princess.  
  
And with the joining of their hands, the deal is struck and their fates are sealed.  
  
She is his and he is hers, no matter how little she may want him, no matter how little he may deserve her.  
  
He expects her to forgo the kiss at the end of the whole charade, and when he is told to do so he leans forward and presses his lips once to her cheek, softly, as he might have kissed his son when he was sick as a small child.  
  
But her head moves at just the wrong moment, and he catches her lips instead.  
  
Her mouth is soft under his, warm and startled, and he freezes in shock. His eyes slide closed of their own accord, and her lips shift just a little under his, just enough to make his blood burn and his hands squeeze hers.   
  
He kisses her very softly, moves his mouth just enough for it to qualify as a kiss and not just an accidental brushing of lips, before he pulls away and smiles, entirely ashamed of himself.  
  
For all that she agreed to marry him, she never agreed to let him kiss her, or to let him touch her in any way beyond the perfunctory and innocent.  
  
But she is staring at him, a very small and slight smile playing at her lips, and there is no fear or anger in her eyes.  
  
So that’s a start.  
  
Their wedding is not what the village would host in peacetime. There are no dances, no songs sung or wines tasted. They go home to their little house, and Morraine and her parents join them for dinner. Mistress Maisie roasted a bird from the forest, and with the vegetables Belle prepared the night before and the few potatoes from the garden they make a decent celebratory meal.  
  
The mead is the same they always drink, but they’re all smiling, and for a few hours Rum can pretend that there is no war creeping toward their doors, that there’re no missing spaces at the table.  
  
He holds Belle’s hand under the table: the one contact either of them are comfortable with.  
  
They are brothers in arms, and friends, and they both made a sacrifice for the other today. The least they can do is squeeze each other’s fingers once in a while and smile.  
  
“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” Belle murmurs, as they sit with their drinks and the meal has dissolved into several little conversations. This happens whenever Bae invites their neighbours over: everyone talks together over the food, and then they break into pairs and groups. But the neighbours are Bae’s friends: they tolerate Rum only out of love for his son.  
  
He always sat at the side, alone, watching and trying not to fear the empty space Bae would make when he was gone.   
  
It hits him with the force of a cannonball when Belle goes with him, settles herself at his side and weaves her fingers with his once more. She is his wife, and perhaps theirs isn’t a love-match, perhaps it’s an awful idea for so many reasons, but at least he is no longer alone.   
  
“Who?” he looks at her, surprised by her closeness: he expected her to be curled as far from him as possible, knowing what he now knows of her last marriage. He wouldn’t blame her for absenting herself from him entirely.  
  
Does she sit by his side because she wishes him near, or because she refuses to bow to her fears?  
  
He should care more for the answer, but the sheer fact of her proximity sends a rush of fierce joy through him, and so he simply looks at her, admires the woman who is now his bride.  
  
“Bae and Morraine,” she laughs, as if it is obvious, “He’s so smitten he can barely even look at her, see!” she points, a small movement, trying not to attract attention.  
  
His son is sat by the fire with his best friend, and indeed, he doesn’t remember the pair of them sitting so close before, or him leaning so attentively to hear what she has to say.  
  
He finds himself smiling, laughing too. He’d suspected that his son had more delicate feelings for the girl, of course, especially after hearing his nightmares, but it is rather sweet to see them together. “I hope they get to stay together.” He says, and Belle nods, her mouth a firm and sad little line.  
  
Her hand in his is warm and strong, and they stay that way for a long time.  
  
He might not love her, but he knows for certain that he’d rather she be here with him than anywhere else.   
  
“Are you alright?” he asks, as Morraine and her family ready themselves to leave and Bae sees them out.  
  
“I’m fine.” She smiles, and it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, “I’m a wife, now.”  
  
“Again.” He curses himself for saying it, but her story of a few nights ago is rushing through his mind again, and he wonders once more how she can stand even to hold his hand with those kind of memories behind her.  
  
“Yes,” she nods, even that false little piece of cheer gone from her face, “Again.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he’s not sure what he’s apologising for but it seems so important that he does, “I… I’m sorry.”  
  
“For what?” She tosses her head, brushing her dark hair back with her free hand, “What could you have done?”  
  
“I… I’m not sure. I’m just sorry.”  
  
“Then you’d be the first.” She smiles, and there’s something soft and so very sad in her eyes as one tear falls down her cheek, “Thank you.”  
  
He reaches around, very slowly, and brushes it aside with his thumb. His hands are clean, for once, a concession of water and the tiny bar of lye soap they have in respect for his wedding day. She stares at him, her eyes wide, and she seems caught between a dear in the sights of a huntsman and a truly blushing bride.  
  
Perhaps she is as scared as he is, really: perhaps they can learn to be husband and wife, if only they give it a chance.  
  
Bae returns, and they break apart slowly. “I…” the poor boy looks horribly awkward, “Morraine said I can sleep in their house, tonight. Mistress Maisie was very certain about it, actually. Do you mind, papa?”  
  
Maisie seems the only woman in town who wasn’t giving him funny looks all day. He knows her intention, and while he thanks her silently for her consideration, he doubts the night will go the way the woman obviously expects. They may be joined now in the eyes of the Gods, but he does not dare to think that Belle will want him to be a husband in all ways.  
  
“Do you want to go, son?” he asks, carefully.  
  
“If… if it’s alright?”  
  
“We’ll manage on our own for a night, Bae,” Belle assures him, “Go have fun.”  
  
“Thank you!” he smiles, and Rum will never not be astonished by his boy’s smile, by how wonderfully genuine it is when it comes. Not often enough, these days.   
  
He grabs a few of his things from his bed, and runs over to give Rum a hug, “Congratulations, papa,” he whispers, and Rum nods, holding him close for a moment, breaking his hold on Belle’s hand to do so.  
  
Bae pulls back, and then surprises his father - although the surprise shouldn’t be so, because of course Belle is Bae’s friend and now his step-mother - by leaning around to embrace Belle as well. She presses a kiss to her new son’s cheek and smiles, “Thank Mistress Maisie for me, won’t you?”  
  
Bae nods, “Okay, goodnight!” and then leaves without a backward glance.  
  
Belle and Rum are left sat together in their empty home, and Rum suddenly has no idea at all of what to say.  
  
“Well,” Belle breaks the silence, “That was… quite a day.”  
  
“Indeed.” He nods, and takes her hand again. She almost seems to sag in relief, and he wonders if perhaps she enjoys this small, comforting contact as much as he. “Wife.”  
  
“My husband.” She seems almost to test the words, rolls them around her mouth, “Who would have thought?”  
  
“Not I,” he admits, “I suppose the Duke would not have expected this for his daughter, either?”  
  
It is the wrong thing to say: the small, comfortable little smile on her face falls away, and he is once more looking at a haunted, restless, lonely runner. His wife becomes the runaway princess, and she murmurs, “No. If he had, then the soldiers would be at the door right now.”  
  
“Oh, yes,” he nods, and how did he forget the purpose of their marriage, for even a moment? “They would.”  
  
She sighs, and he wonders how he so thoroughly ruined the peaceful, comfortable little atmosphere they had created. She stands, but she pulls him with her, so he leans a little on her to rest his leg, and looks down into her face. “You must be exhausted,” he says, “Why don’t you get some sleep? We can talk in the morning.”  
  
“I’m… I’m alright, actually,” she says, and there is something in her eyes, something not quite determination and not quite fear, that he cannot understand. “And we are newly married.”  
  
“Belle,” he looks at her, tries to see whatever it is she’s thinking behind those blue eyes of hers, “I-“  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin,” she cuts him off, “You are my husband now, and I a wife. There are matters that need attending to.”  
  
“In the morning,” he nods, “We can find you new clothing and perhaps some better bedding?” he hopes, desperately, that her mind is on mundane, domestic matters. But she raises one hand, silences him, shakes her head.  
  
“This needs settling tonight,” she insists, and perhaps he doesn’t imagine the little shake in her voice, “And I don’t think I need new bedding, do you?”  
  
He swallows hard, “Belle, I wouldn’t-“  
  
“What else would you gain from this?” she asks, quietly, her face so close to his that he can barely breathe, “I am your wife, Rumpelstiltskin, in all ways.”  
  
He was about to protest, make her understand that he had married her for her safety and his son’s happiness, that he expects nothing more from her than that. But he is silenced by the soft and insistent pressure of her lips against his, by her arms around his shoulders and her body pressed against him.  
  
He lets out a small sound, somewhere between a whimper and a groan, and flutters his hands down to her waist, unsure of where to put them, how safe he needs to be.  
  
He can’t help but kiss her back, slant his lips over hers a little clumsily, a little firmer than he had at their wedding.  
  
She kissed him: that is invitation enough to follow and kiss her just as well, is it not?  
  
He almost jumps out of his skin when her tongue touches his lips, and shifts backwards, breaking their contact. “What’s wrong?” she asks, frowning in confusion.  
  
“Belle, we don’t have to do this.” He tells her, once again, begging her to see the truth of it. He won’t have her give herself to him out of duty; he won’t ask that of her.  
  
“If we don’t, then how are we truly married?”  
  
“The preacher seemed fairly clear on the fact, dear. There is no more to do.”  
  
“I would… I would be a wife to you, Rumpelstiltskin,” she says, and she sounds so far away, so young and so lost, that he has to take her hands in his once more and hold on, try to reassure his trembling newlywed wife that she need not fear him, never at all.  
  
“Why?” he feels the question is important, means nothing but to assure her own comfort, and yet her face falls, and her sadness only seems to increase.  
  
“Do you… do you not want me?”  
  
He considers the question, although deep down he knows the answer. She is beautiful, more with every passing day, and more than that, she is brave and intelligent, kind and practical. If he had allowed himself a moment to think on it, a moment unoccupied by fear or running from it, then he would have seen it sooner: yes, of course he wants her.  
  
“I want…” he tried to phrase it delicately, so as not to scare, burden, or sadden her. It was difficult: he felt like he was tiptoeing around a deep well, and one false word would send him tumbling over. “I want you to be happy and safe. Would my… bedding you make you happy, Belle?”  
  
“I would feel less, I’m not sure…” she paused bit her lip and tried again, “I would feel like I belong here, like we were… bound somehow, I suppose.”  
  
“Perhaps,” he looked into her eyes, was unsurprised to see something evasive, something darting and dishonest there, “But that is not all, is it? The ring is enough for that.”  
  
“When did you start caring?” she goes on the offensive, steps back, but her hand stays wrapped in his, “Why would you even want me here? You cooked and cleaned and looked after Bae for years before I arrived, so what in the name of all the Gods would you want me for?”  
  
He can’t answer that; he doesn’t understand it himself.  
  
He wants her safe, and happy, and protected. He wants her hand in his and her warmth beside him to keep out the cold. He wants Bae to have an adult he can look up to, someone who can make them brave and strong.  
  
But none of that makes any sense, so he just shakes his head, “Not for this, Belle, believe me.”  
  
“If you didn’t want to bed me, then you could have told me.”  
  
“I wouldn’t lie to you like that.” He says, and the words - gentle and well meaning and riddled with mistakes - are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He keeps going, hopes to distract her, “Please, tell me why you wish to go through with this: you cannot want me, not like that, not so soon.”  
  
“I would…” she breaks their contact, throws up her hands in defeat, “I would know the worst of it, alright? I wish to know what manner of monster I married.”  
  
That brings him up short. He stares at her, tries not to allow his mouth to gape in astonishment. She believes he would hurt her, truly? “What?”  
  
“The fear of the unknown is the worst of all.” She replies, her voice steady and chin high: a princess in battle, “When my… when the ogre prince had done all he could think of, then at least there was less fear in it.”  
  
“And you believe…” he stares at her still, and suddenly he feels so much pain for her that he can barely breathe. He reaches out to her, slowly, puts on careful hand on her shoulder, “Belle, I would never hurt you. Ever, please believe that.”  
  
“Men are not good when they lie with their women,” she replies, but she doesn’t move away. Her blue eyes plead for him to prove her wrong, beg for another chance at something he cannot name, “Ever.”  
  
“Ogres are not men, wife,” he uses the term deliberately: she is not a monster’s wife, not anymore. She is his, and he would sooner walk through fire than allow himself to harm a hair on her head. At some point, she became second only to Bae in the things he needs to protect; at some point, she became important.  
  
“You would… you would stop, if I asked?” she practically begs for something a woman should be certain of with any lover, and it breaks his heart a little bit.  
  
“Of course, Belle. Never doubt it.”  
  
“Then… then we should consummate our marriage, shouldn’t we?” She leans up again, kisses him so softly and sweetly he feels he might die from it.  
  
And all of a sudden, he wishes to do exactly as she says. To take her to his bed, to do his best to assuage her fears, her doubts and worries and awful memories. Trassia had never enjoyed his caresses, wanted his touch, but then their marriage had been a long time ago, and she had never truly cared for him much at all.  
  
Would things be different, he wonders, with Belle? Would she welcome his kisses, the brush of his skin against hers? The longing to find out, to make their marriage true and whole in all ways, is overwhelming.  
  
And yet, he only kisses her a moment before he pushes her back, and smiles at her, squeezes her fingers with his, “Perhaps. But not tonight, dear, not now.”  
  
“Why not? Bae is gone so that we can do this very thing.”  
  
“Because you’re terrified, and I know that feeling. And you do not desire me however much you wish you did. And it’s alright, dear, truly, I’m not offended or… disappointed. I would rather you willing or not at all.”  
  
“I could…” she murmurs, “I… I could want to.”  
  
“I hope so.” He smiles, so very glad that they’re finally on the same page, “One day.”  
  
“I just…” she shakes her head, and her hair sways around her face, “I remember…”  
  
“I know.” He nods, “And we can do this slowly, if you want to. If you wish us to be married in all ways and not just in words, we can make tiny steps.”  
  
“You would… you would hold back? For me?” She is so far from the brave, beautiful woman he knows she is, that he has to wonder how horribly she must truly have been hurt, for her to be so small and uncertain before even he.  
  
He laughs, “It’s been ten years since I was last a husband. I doubt I’ll notice the difference.”  
  
She doesn’t ask about Trassia, although he can see the curiosity in her eyes. Some things are best left unspoken, at least between two such as they who are barely more than acquaintances.  
  
One day, he will share his tale and she the full extent of hers.  
  
But for now, he simply smiles, allows the affection he feels growing within him for this woman to shine through. She responds slowly at first, but at least her little smiles are genuine, at least he can feel the relief and the almost-happiness rolling off her, her shoulders relaxed and her hand somehow softer in his.  
  
“Where do you wish to start, husband?”  
  
He looks at her a moment, and moves one hand up to cup her cheek. He brings his lips to hers as she did earlier, presses his mouth against hers softly, gently. He doesn’t hold her against him, does nothing to keep her there. He kisses as well as he knows how, slants his lips over hers and caresses her mouth with his.  
  
She sighs, after a moment, and he feels one of her small hands coming to hold the back of his neck. Her tongue touches his lips again, and this time he opens for her, coaxing her mouth open with his own.   
  
He strokes her tongue with his, tries to keep the kiss slow and gentle, and he feels her sigh again as he pulls back. He feels a trace of moisture on his cheek as he does, and he realises belatedly that she is crying.  
  
“I didn’t think I was that bad at this, dear,” he quips, lightly, as he brushes her tears aside with his thumbs, revels in the small pleasure of being allowed to touch her so.  
  
“No!” she gasps, “No, it wasn’t that, it was just… No one ever…” she shakes her head, “Kiss me again?”  
  
He smiles, and does as she bids. She follows his movements, this time, moves her lips in tandem with his, explores his mouth a little further with the tip of her tongue.   
  
Her fingers tangle in his hair softly, play with it a little as she takes control of their kiss.  
  
It’s not perfect, not by a long way: their movements, his hand on her waist, her lips against his, are clumsy and fumbling. He doesn’t know the places in her mouth that will bring her pleasure, nor she him. And yet, he thinks a little dazedly, as they kiss a third and a fourth time, this is the happiest he’s been in a very long time.  
  
She sleeps in the attic with him, that night, and appears to plan to for the foreseeable future. She even allows him to kiss her goodnight, once, when they are side by side in the bed, and then rolls over and curls into him when he wraps a tentative arm around her.  
  
The nightmares come; they always do, and so do hers. But somehow, when he wakes in the night with Bae’s terrified face behind his eyes, her soft wrapped in his arms goes a long way to setting his mind at ease.


	6. Chapter 6

Bae doesn’t understand what has changed between Belle and his father, but Morraine seems to find it hysterically funny.

“I don’t understand why we have to hide,” he grumbles, as she pulls him down behind a bush to watch his father and stepmother, “They’re my family.”

And they are: that’s the incredible thing. In the month that has passed since their wedding, both nothing and everything has changed. There is always warm, wholesome, tasty food on their table, and the house is clean, and papa walks with his head just a little higher, his shoulders back.

Belle stays in the house or near it, never strays beyond Morraine’s house for fear of the soldiers. No one cares about the spinner’s new wife, not really, not when they have a harvest to bring in and are so under-manned with everyone (everyone, all the men and boys and strong girls) sent to war.

But some people are still curious, about the new girl who would marry the coward.

Bae knows what they call his papa, even if he doesn’t say it, even if he doesn’t believe a word. And there’re enough people with loose tongues in this village that he knows they wonder why the pretty girl married him, of all people.

Morraine swats his arm and frowns, “You really don’t see it, Bae?”

“See what? Papa is spinning and Rose is hanging washing. What is there to see?”

Morraine shakes her head, “Look closer,” she takes his head between her hands - warm, soft, gentle hands - and turns his head slowly to look at Belle’s face.

Her eyes dart to his papa every now and then. Not so much that it was noticeable without watching, but dart they did. She smiles every time, a smile he swears he’s never seen on her face before.

“What’m I looking at?” he asks, after a second, and Morraine sounds like she’ll kill him just for being stupid.

“Okay, you’re obviously dumber than mama’s chickens, so I’ll tell you. They’re falling in love.”

Bae blinked, torn between glancing feverishly between his papa and step-mother and just staring blankly at his friend. “They’re only married cause she needs a place to live.” He protests.

“They’re married because they want to be married.” She counters, calmly, “Other wise couldn’t she have been a friend or family member from Longbourne? Why a bride if they didn’t wish to be wed?”

Morraine, Bae has decided, is too clever for her own good.

He can’t tell her that ‘Rose’ is really Belle, and that she is a runaway princess with a price on her head. Morraine wouldn’t tell a soul, but if anyone asks her what she knows papa wants everyone to be able to be honest, and say they know nothing.

Papa is terrified of the soldiers, and having Belle with them is like having a massive sign in red paint on the front door, asking for trouble.

And yet he married her; and yet his eyes spend more time on her than they do on his wheel.

Bae likes Belle a lot, and he’s glad they accepted his idea, glad to have a step-mother and something that feels so much more like a family than whatever he and his papa were before.

But Morraine is grinning, “You’re adorable when you’re confused.”

“Not confused,” he grumbles, “Papa is… papa. Papa doesn’t fall in love!”

“And why not?” she asks, as if she’s a little offended, “Anyone can fall in love, Bae, why should your papa be different?”

“Because he’s… I don’t know!” Bae almost cries, but keeps his voice down so the grown-ups won’t hear him, “He just is. He’s been married, he has me…”

“And now he has Rose,” she nods, smiles, “And he’s falling in love.”

“Well it’s none of my business, anyway,” Bae gets to his feet and slips as fast as he can around the back of the house and toward the trees. He knows Morraine is following, but he needs to yell at her somewhere they won’t be overheard.

“Yes it is, Bae!” Morraine catches his arm, and he tries not to notice how weirdly nice it feels having her there, “You have to help them work it out!”

“You just said he liked her!” he moans, “Now I have to make him?”

“No!” Morraine looks very close to stamping her foot in frustration, “Now you have to make it so they can see it too!”

“How?”

Morraine pauses, frowning, “I don’t know.” She admits, and Bae grins.

“See? They’re grown ups, they should figure these things out on their own.”

He smiles smugly, and Morraine seems to have no answer for that.

Her words remain in his mind, though, long after she has gone to help her mama with the housework and Bae has seated himself by the spinning wheel. He helps his father wordlessly, too busy thinking, and not sure at all what he’s thinking about.

Belle and papa are married, and it was his idea. And it has worked: the soldiers haven’t bothered them once in the month since the wedding.

But they’re still married, and while Bae knows not all marriages are done for love, they don’t look and talk to each other like brother and sister either. Bae has no notion at all of the difference between ‘married’ and ‘in love’, but Morraine seems to see one leading to the other.

So he watches them more closely - he doesn’t mean to, but once an idea has lodged in his head it’s hard to shift free - and there is something decidedly… different about them, now.

He watches Belle serve papa first at the table, and smile when he thanks her and pats her hand.

Papa laughs when she curses at her sewing, and throws the half-darned shirt halfway across the room in a temper. “Blasted bloody thing!” she snarls, and if Bae said something like that papa would frown disapprovingly, even if he wouldn’t actually scold him.

When Belle does it, papa just laughs, fetches the sewing from its crumpled heap on the floor, and brings it back to her. They sit together, quietly, as he shows her how to repair a hole in one of Bae’s own tunics without pricking her fingers on the needle.

They are so quiet, in that moment, that Bae feels even the air is different around them than it is for him.

Is this what Morraine meant? These odd, quiet, private little moments that seem to come from nowhere and exclude all but the two of them?

He sees them together, curled around the errant sewing, Belle shaking her head and papa guiding her hands, and he has to run from the house. It is worse than if they were kissing as the older boys and girls do in the village: he feels no one but they - not even he, their son - should see such a moment.

He’s sat at the wheel - he is not as good a spinner as his father, but he is at least proficient - when Morraine finds him.

“You were right,” he says, and he has no idea what emotion it is in his voice, but it sounds dull and heavy even to his own ears, “About papa and Belle.”

“Oh, that,” Morraine nods, takes Bae’s usual seat beside papa’s stool, “I know. What happened?”

“They… they look at each other a lot.”

“Are you alright?” she asks, and what a weird question to ask.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know…” Morraine smiles, and he likes it when she smiles, “Your papa’s paying more attention to someone else. Are you okay?”

She’s right, of course she’s right, and there’s a part of Bae that truly misses being the only thing in his papa’s world. But then, he brought Belle into their home, and he encouraged her to stay, and the marriage was his idea.

He can’t complain, not now.

And how silly is it to worry about his papa’s attention wavering when there is a war not three towns from their door, and the soldiers could come for them any day now?

He pushes down the jealousy as he pushes down the fear, and the biting, angry voice telling him to run and run and never, ever stop.

Bae is brave: if he is not brave then he is a coward, and there cannot be two in the family.

At least with Belle he doesn’t have to pretend that she is a hero when she is not. He knows enough of her past, now, to know that she is capable of more than most of the men Bae has ever known, let alone the women.

He likes her; he can learn to get used to sharing his only family with her.

If his father is learning to love her, then Bae should learn the same. It just feels so much more difficult, now that she is here to stay for good. Now that she is ‘step-mother’ and not just ‘guest’ or ‘friend’ or ‘runner’.

Morraine is waiting for an answer, and so all Bae does is smile and say, “Papa’s happier now. It’s nice.”

She regards him for a moment, head cocked to one side, “That’s a nice way of looking at it, Bae.”

And it is nice, for a while, for the most part.

For another month, perhaps a few weeks more, they sit in the evenings and Belle tells stories as she weaves her cat’s cradle, and papa sews shirts - Belle doesn’t sew unless she has to; she doesn’t papa’s fingers for it - and Bae sits on the floor by the fire, dozing until he is half asleep and sent to bed.

Until, one day, things change.

The soldiers don’t come to the door - no one thinks they will, not yet, not now - and there are no storms or ogres crashing at the gates.

Instead, a stranger comes to town.

He is almost twice Bae’s height; taller than all but the blacksmith and his sons, and broad, muscled and well-fed. He doesn’t look at anyone as he rides through town, but stops at the one tavern in the middle of the village, starts asking questions.

They’re more cleverly worded, by papa’s account, but they’re like the ones the soldiers were asking. He’s looking for a dark-haired, blue-eyed young woman.

He says she’s probably very skinny, as if he doesn’t know for sure.

Bae thinks Papa’s right to insist - the night after he overheard the stranger, when they sit around the fire as a family - that Belle stay inside at all times, far away from windows and doors. He could be a bounty hunter, in search of the lost princess, and although she is always so calm, so steady, when the words are spoken Bae can see her hand tremble.

He doesn’t miss the little glance between them, when papa reaches out and takes her shaking fingers in his. She breathes deeply for a moment, and then smiles, a small and hesitant thing.

Papa never comforted anyone but him, before they came. And his papa’s comforts never settled Bae’s stomach, or stopped his blood from running hot and cold with worry and fear.

How could he let himself feel bad about their being married, if the change is so good?

And so, the next morning, Bae himself goes into the village, under the pretence of food shopping. They grow almost all of what they eat, buy the rest from the few neighbours who will still sell to papa, but the story holds well the few times he is asked.

He wanders, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stranger. Papa was in the dark, in the tavern, hidden in a corner, and had not seen his face. Belle needs to know what he looks like: needs to know if they’ve ever met.

But Bae has been walking around, meandering between stalls and standing - affecting a lost and confused face, the face of a child without his father, a face Bae knows too well how to pull - on corners and in doorways, for hours before he sees anything useful

The stranger is walking through the crowds, glancing left and right, never pausing on a face and yet never ceasing his searching.

Bae knows he should not approach him: anonymity is all his family has as protection.

But he needs to see him, properly, needs information more than he needs to run. And so, while he knows papa will scold him, he runs forward anyway and collides with the stranger side-on, as if he is a foolish child who didn’t look where he was going.

Bae always looks where he’s going, always.

“Woah,” the man grunts, but he helps Bae up, “What happened there?”

“Sorry, sir,” Bae lowers his head, respectfully: this man is gentry, or at least in the army, and even if he weren’t he is an adult. He’s less likely to remember a small boy who bowed his head in respect than one who stared at his face. “I should’ve looked where I was going.”

“Don’t worry about it, young man,” the stranger sounds as if he’s smiling, and Bae chances a glance at his face. He is handsome, he supposes, looks like a knight or a prince. There is no mud on his face, no bruises or cuts. He is not a peasant.

He feels a curl of fear in his stomach: someone powerful is looking for Belle, someone who can smile at a stranger even now. Someone brave.

This is so much worse than another soldier looking for her, or perhaps a beggar who had known her on the run, another runner or an ally. If he can smile and help and live with his face clean, if he does not fear his own shadow as everyone else does, then their problems have just increased tenfold.

“Thank you, sir,” Bae nods. He waits to be dismissed, but the stranger regards him thoughtfully, brow furrowed.

“Do you have a name, boy?” he asks, and Bae hears his father in his ears, warning that names have power and that one must keep them safe, keep them secret, keep silent if needs be.

Bae doesn’t like to lie any more than he likes to cower or hide.

But this isn’t about Bae, or even about papa. This is about Belle, about a woman who he himself promised to help and protect. If she wishes to hide and wait for the storm to pass, then Bae is in no position to lead the thunder to her door.

“My name is Spindleshanks,” he lies, and the false name falls flat from his tongue, but at least it’s better than having this man track him down and find Belle, “And I’m eleven years old.

“Well, it’s good to meet you, Spindleshanks,” the man nods, “I am Sir Gaston.”

He gives his name freely, willingly, and Bae is chilled to the bone. Confidence, in Bae’s life, has often gone hand-in-hand with knives and people taken in the night.

“A real knight?” he feigns fearful admiration, the kind he might have felt before the war if approached by such a figure, before he learnt what they could truly do. Other boys in the village yearn to fight and die in battle, but while he doesn’t wish to hide as papa does, Bae has never been one of them. Bloodshed and sharp swords no longer hold their appeal, now that they exist outside of the old stories. “That’s amazing!”

Sir Gaston laughs, “It’s more work than it sounds, trust me. Perhaps you one day, hm? If this war ever ends and you’re able to get some true training.”

That brings Bae up short: a man in armour who wishes the war to end?

“Maybe.” He nods, keeps his false smile in place, and then lies once again. His tongue will turn black if he keeps this up, “My mama is missing me, have you seen her?”

“Perhaps, what does she look like?”

Bae has an idea, “She’s kinda short, dark hair, blue eyes. Skinny.”

Sir Gaston frowns, thinks, “I’m looking for someone who matches that description,” he says, “But this is your mother?”

Bae shrugs, “Mama has never left the village, so far as I know. Except to go with papa and me to Longbourne sometimes. But then she is scared by the crowds.”

If Belle is known by this man to be his mother, and her resemblance to the lost princess no more than that, then perhaps hiding will be less vital. Bae is exceptionally proud of himself for this idea, and resolves to tell Belle as soon as he gets back.

“Oh, right,” Sir Gaston frowns, “Perhaps she is not who I seek, then.”

“Why?” Bae frowns, a picture of confusion, “Who’re you looking for, sir?”

“An old friend of mine, boy,” his eyes shine, but he still doesn’t look evil. He doesn’t seem as bloodthirsty as the soldiers Bae has seen and run from, but perhaps knights are just better at hiding it, “Something awful happened to her, and I need to find her as soon as possible.”

“Oh, well, mama’s never met a knight, she would have told me.” Bae says, “But if I see your friend, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her!” this last, at least, is the truth: when Bae returns home, this story will be the first thing he tells his step-mother.

“Thank you, boy,” Sir Gaston looks genuinely grateful, and Bae turns away. His whole body freezes when he feels a hand on his arm, stopping him, “If it helps,”the knight adds, as Bae turns back to face him, “Her name is Belle. But I doubt she uses it anymore.”

He looks so genuinely sad, that for a moment Bae is tempted to tell him at least part of the truth. But his papa always warns about tricksters who lie with their whole body, not just their words, and Bae won’t be fooled by sad eyes and stooped shoulders.

“Thank you, sir.” He says, and practically runs away, unable to keep his feet from pounding on the soft earth of the road as he tears home.

He bursts into their little house breathing hard, and immediately Belle’s arms are around him, “Bae?” she asks, worry wrapped around even just the syllable of his name, “Bae, what happened, are you alright?”

He clings to her a moment, like the child he’s almost grown out of but not quite, and is tempted to hold onto her and sob into her shoulder in fear.

But Belle is brave, and he can be too, and if he cannot be strong and protect her then he is worthless to his family. So he holds himself together, and breathes deeply, and lets go of his step-mother with a shake of his head. “I met a knight.”

She goes still all over, and he wonders once again who this man is to her. He knew her name; he used his own. There is more here than a bounty hunter. “Oh?”

“He was at the market: the stranger papa saw last night.” He explains, as the pair of them cross to the dining table. Belle pours two cups of chamomile tea - he can see her trying to act normal for him, sees the tension in her body - and takes a seat across from him.

“And why did you speak to him, Bae?”

“I ah… I wanted to know more.” He admits, and he hopes she’s not angry with him. He’s never seen Belle so much as cross, but he’s sure it’s a fearsome sight.

“That was a very silly thing to do, Bae,” she shakes her head, and somehow her disappointment is worse than her anger could have been, “You might have lead him right to our door.”

“I told him my name was Spindleshanks.” He explains, a little defensively, because he’s nearly fourteen and as tall as she is and he’s not a stupid child, not anymore, “And that you were my birth mother. To make him think - even if you meet him - that you’re not the girl he’s looking for.”

She stares at him as he explains his encounter in a bit more detail, and when he’s done she takes a long drink of her tea and looks at her hands, knotted in front of her.

“He said his name was Gaston?”

“Yes.” Bae nods, “Definitely.”

“Tall, broad, dark hair?” she presses, “Dark brown eyes?”

“Yep, that’s him,” he nods again, tries to smile, but the terror in her eyes, the trembling smile on her lips, as if all hope is lost and they’re drowning in the ocean he’s never seen, scares him even more. “Why, who is he?”

She gulps, and he realises with a start that she’s trying not to cry, “He was the love of my life, once upon a time.”


	7. Chapter 7

Rumpelstiltskin, for a man who spends much of his life trying not to be noticed, certainly picks his moments to reappear.

Belle, as soon as the words left her mouth, had hoped that perhaps Bae could hold his tongue and keep to himself what she had said about Gaston. Perhaps her former fiancé would leave the village empty-handed and allow them to continue their lives as before.

But her sudden, thoughtless admission rings through the air, and meets Rumpelstiltskin as he comes in through the door.

She glances at him in horror, wishing she could tear the words from the air itself, stop him from hearing them, for reasons she herself cannot explain.

But he doesn’t even look at her. That’s the worst part: he can’t bear to look.

It doesn’t seem fair; indeed, it isn’t close to justice, his being upset by this news. Theirs is not a love-match, of course not, they married for convenience. And for all their small, simple, beautiful kisses and tentative little touches in the intervening weeks, she never considered herself beholden to him, nor he to her.

She knows he once loved another: the presence of his teenaged son is evidence enough of that.

She doesn’t even know her predecessor’s name, nor does she care to learn. Not for jealousy or anger, but simply because it seems irrelevant. Rumpelstiltskin’s life has changed dramatically since he was first married, and Belle’s even more so, since the old days when she had fancied herself in love with Gaston.

“What is the matter, husband?” she asks, as he takes a seat opposite her at the table. Only with speech does she realise the tremble in her fingers and limbs, which translates into her voice.

“There is nothing the matter, dear,” he responds, and his hesitant smile does a very little to allay her fears that he has been hurt, however unfairly, by this. He turns to Bae, who has taken a seat beside his father, “I only heard a little of your story, son; if you could refresh the details for me then that would help.”

Bae recaps the tale of his afternoon to his father, and Belle allows - for just a moment - her head to spin with the news and her memories to flood.

Gaston wouldn’t drag her back, kicking and screaming, of this she is certain. They never loved truly, nor deeply but they were been friends since childhood. And Bae had appeared puzzled by the lack of anger or malice, predatory gleam, to their village’s visitor. He is not here to abduct her and drag her back to her father’s court, of this Belle is reasonably sure.

But why, then, would he do anything more than spread the rumours that she had died when she leapt from that tower window? What does he hope to achieve by pursuing her, other than lead the soldiers right to her door?

Bae finishes his story, and Rum’s eyes are fixed squarely on his cup, grasped in his hands. He’d made himself tea, at some point, and her too, while she was lost in thought.

She sips it gratefully, but he doesn’t meet her eyes.

“Is he a threat, wife?” he asks, his voice harder than his usual tones, and she tries not to allow herself to cry then and there. Whether for the fact that her oldest friend must be the subject of such a question, or because they will never, never, ever be truly safe, she doesn’t know.

But what had she expected? To be allowed to live in peace and harmony, with a kindly husband and a sweet adopted son, into a comfortable old age?

Such things are not options for princesses in this land, nor even for common women. Bae will be sent to fight; Rumpelstiltskin will die a slow death with every day of his absence. The inevitable loss of their son will destroy them both.

But her other option? To seek out Gaston or her father’s men and possibly be returned to her childhood home in chains and disgrace? The horror of that thought is at least equal, if not a hundred times worse.

But still, she shakes her head, “On his own? He was my closest friend for most of my life, he would not betray me now.”

“But his men?”

“Unless more than I am aware of has changed since I left the court,” or since she left her first husband’s dungeon of a home, and lost the last of her precious, ransomed letters in the process “They are under his father’s control, and his father under the thumb of mine. If made aware, they would most likely take me away even if he did not.”

Rumpelstiltskin curses, but Bae seems too stricken to notice.

“What do we do, then?” the boy asks, his voice small and young and frightened, “If we can’t trust him to know the truth?”

Rumpelstiltskin thinks for a moment, and then looks his son full in the face, “We, boy? We run.”

“Run?” Belle stares at him, “Where? Gaston will only follow, and new people in a new village will cause a stir, enough for someone to mention something, to ask a question.” She feels her blood pump faster and faster, her thoughts running into hysteria and panic, and she shakes her head, runs a trembling hand through her hair. “We can’t run, not now, not yet.”

“Then what do we do?” he is watching her intently, but at least he meets her eyes. The small part of Belle not currently screaming is a little comforted by that.

“I… I have to talk to him.” She says, quietly, almost numbly, and Rumpelstiltskin looks as if she has lost her mind.

“Talk? Belle, your name and face are on wanted posters from here to Agrabah: everyone is looking for you. You cannot go up to a knight of the realm and introduce yourself.”

But Belle has already shut down the crying, hysterical voices in her mind. All that is left is a numb, clear kind of plan forming. Something has to shift; something has to change. They will never be safe if all they do is run and hide.

“He’s not just a knight of the realm, he is someone who could help us.”

“And if not? If he has somehow changed since you last saw him, years ago? What then?”

“I… I don’t know.” She admits, and feels the tears run down her face anyway, splashing into her chamomile tea. All she’d wanted was the war to end; all she’d wanted was to marry someone who didn’t hurt her, someone kind.

She’d had one, and then the other, and neither had come out the way she’d intended.

Intention is, apparently, meaningless.

They sit in silence for a moment, and then Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head, “You can’t. You’ll lead the soldiers here; the only thing we can do now is leave.”

She stares at him, “Rumpelstiltskin,” she says, quietly, “They’ll come for Bae whether they find me or not. Running to another town won’t change that.”

Bae stares at her, and his father also. Rum looks so stricken, so suddenly astonished and terrified and hurt all at once, that she wishes she could pluck the words from where they hang in the air, pull them back as if she’d never said them at all.

But she can’t, and this is the truth they live with. No matter how hard Rumpelstiltskin wishes otherwise, no matter how many times he promises that it will never happen.

This is the world they live in.

“I’m going to talk to Gaston.” She continues, “Perhaps he’ll even help us.”

“Bae.” Rum turns to his son, “Would you mind going out and finishing the reel I’ve started? Your mama and I need to talk.”

She wonders if he used her almost-title deliberately, to remind her of her duties here. Either way, it cuts deep, and she almost winces. She’s never seen him anything close to actually angry, and it’s not so much frightening as it is physically painful.

Rumpelstiltskin would never hurt her: this much she knows from the almost two months she’s known him. And yet she is still horribly afraid of his anger.

“Belle…” she expects shouting, accusations, and yet his voice is low and quiet as always, “Do you… do you want to go to your knight?”

“He could help us.” She almost says ‘me’ but amends it at the last moment. This isn’t just about her, after all, but about Rum and Bae as well. The price of companionship - family, although the word still seems strange to apply to the spinner and his son - is care for more than just her personal happiness.

The words fall flat and weak, and she can almost understand the pain in his sad, dark eyes. Almost. “Perhaps he could claim to have found me dead?” she suggests, “Or he could give us aid in reaching another land. One without a war.”

“Belle,” he looks down at his hands, “If you… if you wish to return with this knight of yours… to leave us… you need only say so.”

“What are you asking me?” she doesn’t quite whisper the question, astounded by the idea that he could possibly be… jealous?

But then, she is his wife. With or without the love that was supposed to exist between husband and wife, perhaps a certain possessiveness is still to be expected. Does he think she would run back into the arms of her old love, and forget her life here, so easily?

“I will not keep a woman against her will.” Rumpelstiltskin is never gruff, not really, such standoffishness would require more strength of will, more self-belief, than her shy husband would dare to express. But she can almost see doors closing behind his eyes, emotion being shut off in favour of a blank, uncaring expression.

She is inclined to laugh at the idea, and she puts it down to sheer panic, “You could not keep me, Rumpelstiltskin, if I decided to leave.”

It is the wrong thing to say, and for easily the third time in this single conversation she wishes to stand and hurry around the table, to kneel at his side and wrap her arms around his waist. She doesn’t want him unhappy: his pain is hers.

Which is surprising, considering how they had not even truly been friends before their marriage.

“Bae will miss you.” He says, softly. As if she has already packed her things and thrown herself into Gaston’s arms; as if she has said anything of the sort.

“Why?” she frowns as if she doesn’t understand. That the stupid man would think her the sort to run away from the small and many hardships of this peasant life, in favour of an uncertain future as a princess, is almost laughable.

Gaston is probably married by now, anyway, she thinks. To someone far more suited to his straightforward, almost-simple minded, entirely honest nobility than she ever was.

“Your knight has come to save you,” she wants to smack that little, bitter smile from his lips. Her husband should only and always ever smile for happiness, for love and contentment. He should not smile to cover whatever sadness he is feeling, or to lie about his pains, “Bae will miss you when you’re gone.”

Her suspicions confirmed, she is torn between beating him over the head with something heavy, and kissing him breathless.

“You pack my bags so soon, husband?” she asks, coldly, “Have I overstayed my welcome?”

“Don’t stay here just because you have a band on your finger, wife.” He would spit, she thinks, if he were capable of malice. But he’s still her shy, sweet Rumpelstiltskin, for all that his face is hard and cold as she has ever seen it, and instead it comes out hopeless and dead.

There is a long pause, and then “You wouldn’t chase after me?” she asks, her voice soft and small. She doesn’t know how to feel, whether she is hurt by his lack of care or stunned by the knowledge that he would not hold her captive with her promises, “If I decided to leave?”

“You make your own fate, Belle,” he replies, with a sad little smile, “You killed the last creature who stood in the way of that.”

She winces, the idea that he could fear her, that his knowledge of her crimes could make him believe her capable of murdering a flesh and blood man. That he could think she would do the same to him, should he prevent her from leaving. She’d die first before allowing true harm to come to either the spinner or his son. They had already risked that and more to take her in, to shelter her from the world and its sharp teeth.

But then, she had known the acceptance of an early death before, and perhaps such feelings are worth less, when they come from a woman who leapt from a tower with no notion of anything breaking her fall. “Do not feign terror, husband,” she says, “There are too many things in this world that you should fear. Don’t pretend to believe that I am one of them.”

“You’re the least terrifying creature I’ve ever met.” He replies, and his smile is both reassuring and surprised, “I just… we couldn’t… you don’t belong here. You’re not a weak little peasant, you’re better than that.”

“I’m a runner and a thief and a murderess. That I once wore silks and a coronet means nothing now.”

“You act as if you wish to stay in the dirt with us.” Rumpelstiltskin frowns, as if he cannot believe what he’s saying. Belle can’t either, especially since the sentiment rings true.

She is so much more comfortable, here, with a patient husband and his trembling, artless kisses, and a boy who buries his face in her skirts when he is frightened. Even before the ogre prince’s bargain, before she was bride and whore and plaything, when she was a princess and a dutiful daughter, Belle could not have claimed to be anything as meaningful as she is here with them.

She could be happy, if she weren’t so certain this peace will be broken, and soon, and the pieces will fall sharp and hard, tearing at her skin.

“Gaston could come here right now and offer to sweep me away,” Belle says, carefully, “And I would ask only that he leave immediately, and report me dead to my father.”

“What did he do to you?” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice is hoarse, horrified, and Belle wishes she could pluck her words from the air and haul them back. She doesn’t need to recount this story, she doesn’t need to remember. He doesn’t mean Gaston, of this he is certain. But if he wishes to know her father’s tale, how she was allowed to fall so far and so fast, and hit the ground so hard, then he is asking the wrong questions.

“I… can we not talk about this?” she knots her hands in front of her, chews on her lip, almost frantically, “I don’t want… I can’t…” she takes a deep breath, looks up to see him watching her with warm, deep brown eyes, “Baby steps, yes?”

He nods, “Baby steps.”

They look at each other a moment, and then, with a little cry, she buries her head in her hands, laughing, “We’re terrible at this!” and the tension is broken.

After a moment, she hears him breath a small little laugh of his own. “Can we… can I just…” she shakes her head, starts again, “I need you to know that I’m in this. With you. Forever.” She holds up her hand, shows him her wedding ring, “I’m taking this seriously, you know.”

“You don’t have to.”

“And doesn’t that make it more meaningful that I want to anyway?” she asks, head tilted to one side.

She surprises herself, but him even more so, when she accompanies her question by leaning across the table, and pressing her lips against his. Their kisses, for their month of marriage, have been confined to their little attic bed, in the minutes before they curl up together, ready for sleep.

And yet, somehow, she can think of nothing better to do, in this moment, than to kiss him as deeply as he ever has her, to somehow reassure him that she truly is content to stay here.

She is his wife, and she could choose no better title for herself than that.

Perhaps, someday, she will be able to return to her home. Perhaps her father will regret his decisions, or the wars will end, or the kingdom will burn into such a mess of ashes and silverware that there will be no more dangers left to face. But whether they end up in this muddy, poor little village forever, or ascend to the highest seat in the land, she wishes him by her side.

He makes a strange little noise, surprise and pleasure and confusion all at once, but his lips part for her, and he leans as far as he can forward to kiss her deeper, to return her caresses with equal fervour.

Their month of practice has made them skilled, at least, in this: he strokes the little sensitive places in her mouth with his tongue, caresses her lips with his, and she is more than happy to return the favour.

Her eyes flutter closed somewhere along the line, her hands coming to cradle his face against hers.

It’s as impulsive and passionate a kiss as they’ve ever shared, and when they break apart Belle is surprised to find that she feels not one stirring of unease or fear in the pit of her stomach. All she wants is to be as close to her husband as possible; to prove to him that she means what she says.

He is staring at her, stunned, “What was that for?”

“For letting me go.” She whispers, and bites her lip, feeling it swollen from his kisses, “No one… no one’s ever done that for me before.”

“Well,” he replies, smiling a little bemusedly, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t take the offer.”

“Me too.” She kisses him again, and then once more for good measure, until they’re straining over the table and it’s getting uncomfortable.

They break apart properly, and for a moment they are both beaming into the space between them, as if sharing some secret little joke, a glorious moment that is theirs and theirs alone.

“We’re alright, then?” she asks, and he smiles in a manner that makes her warm all over: happy and a little sly and entirely wonderful.

“Better than.” He assures her, and she feels like she could lean over and kiss him again, if she didn’t know that if she did they’d never stop. But it’s the middle of the day, and there is work to be done.

Perhaps later she can kiss him again, and see how much further she can take things before the inevitable fear and worry gnaws at her stomach, and forces her to stop.

Strangely, and for the first time ever, she can’t foresee the moment when it will.

She nods, approvingly, and stands. She heads out toward the back, intending to get back to work on the laundry Bae had interrupted her on, when his voice - low and hesitant and sweet - stops her once more, “And… ah, the feeling’s mutual, dear.”

“What is?” she asks, turning back to face him.

“If you’re in… this, for good, then so am I.”

She bites her lip to hide her beaming smile - he has been her husband a month, and yet she is still surprised by how fond she is becoming of him - and nods, turning back and leaving into the small yard behind the house.

She feels, for all of a few moments, like a young girl given a flower by a boy she admires. She wishes to clap her hands and perhaps make an embarrassing little noise of happiness, and all because her husband affirmed that he wished her to remain his wife.

But Rumpelstiltskin is no boy, and Belle is no carefree young girl, and this happiness will last as long as their fragile little harmony.

She allows herself to indulge in it, washing the clothing and humming some old little song to herself, remembering his lips against hers, the warmth of his hand against her cheek, the little scrape of his almost-beard on her smooth skin.

But her mind soon turns to strange, soft new dreams. Suddenly she is seeing Bae, hugging her and calling her ‘mama’. She sees the war ending and the children coming home, and the freedom to simply live as Rose, wife of the spinner, in their quiet little home, the lost princess forgotten and lost to legend.

She sees small children, babies with blue eyes and soft, dark hair, his nose and her smile.

She jerks herself up sharply, and purposefully, pinches her own arm hard between her tough nails. She is not seventeen, in love and free to dream of soft, warm children and hearthside gatherings. She is not a girl with the freedom to imagine a quiet, peaceful world.

She forces her mind back to harsher things. She recites the food they have in the pantry, her meal plans for the next few days.

She even purposely thinks of the soldiers and their swords, and of Gaston, poor Gaston, riding through the town, searching for her.

Did she have these dreams for him, once upon a time? Did she imagine tall, strapping boys such as he, with perhaps her softer hair, or her smile, to soften his hard features on their faces? Did she ever think of their life together?

She owed him enough to send him a message. She just needed a little time to work out how to approach him, to know if he could be of use.

Practicality, purpose, and the usual, ever-present slice of fear overrode her girlish dreaming, and she welcomed them with open arms. At least these feelings, these thoughts, were honest with the pain they brought.

Her dreams promised her love and sanctuary, the soft warmth she had glimpsed in Rumpelstiltskin’s dark eyes as she left him in the house. But they could bring only pain, only more hurt, when they were ripped from her and she was left once more in the ashes.


	8. Chapter 8

For all that their differences have been brokered and sorted through, Rumpelstiltskin still feels an odd current of tension hanging in the air through the rest of the day.

He spins with Bae outside, and the boy is wise enough to keep his mouth shut and not ask about the knight he met on the road, or his parents’ conversation inside the house. He knows better than to ask for answers that he doesn’t want to hear.

Rum sees nothing of Belle, and is somewhat glad of it. Their conversation that morning had been a little too intense, too personal, for him to want to talk again so soon.

But, of course, the sun sinks like the bastard it is, and it’s too dark to spin soon enough. Bae draws him away from the wheel when Belle calls for supper, and almost reluctantly Rumpelstiltskin follows his son inside.

She has prepared a small feast - very small, but a feast by their standards at least - and her smile is almost apologetic when they sit down to eat.

“Is there an occasion, dear?” he asks, as he helps himself to some of the meat she has cooked. She just shakes her head, blushes. He has never seen her blush before, and with the smile still in place she looks years younger. She looks her age.

“No, I just… I went a little mad, I think. Stress tends to make me over-productive.”

“Not complaining,” Bae says around a mouthful of food, “Was hungry.”

Rumpelstiltskin laughs, watches his boy shovel food into his mouth as if it’s his last meal on Earth. Bae’s growing fast, soon he’ll be tall as his father and more, especially if he eats at this rate.

All the better for the fighting, a traitorous voice in Rum’s mind whispers, but he ignores it. Whatever will happen will happen, he knows, and if he is to be branded a coward either way then why not simply enjoy what he has now? A wife he is coming to care deeply for, a son he loves more than life, and a home that is warmer than it has been in decades.

Belle giggles, “Slow down, Bae! You’ll choke!”

Bae just swallows his mouthful and gives her a look, “Will not.”

“Will too.” Belle counters, “And then we’ll have Morraine over to see your bright red face!”

Bae’s face does, indeed, go an interesting shade of crimson, and he looks back down at his food fixedly, eating slower with his stepmother’s eyes on him.

Their meal is shared with talk of nothing in particular, weather and work and the laundry that needs doing for tomorrow. They do not discuss the knight who is looking for his wife; they do not mention their activities of earlier, or the promises made.

It is not until Bae has gone to bed, and Rum and Belle are alone by the fire, that he dares to ask the question, “Will you ever wish to tell me?”

She looks up from her cat’s cradle, frowning, “Tell you what?”

“All that happened between your childhood with the knight, and your arrival here. I understand keeping the past where it lies,” he adds, hurriedly, “I just wish to know if there is more around the bend to worry about.”

She stares at him a moment, and her eyes are so young and lost and scared that she could be a girl of Bae’s age, facing war and loss for the first time. He wonders when they got this close, when it became possible for her to look at him so unguardedly. He wonders if he is such an open book to her eyes as well.

“I… I don’t know.” She admits, finally, “Why would you wish to hear such a story?”

“I would wish to know my wife.” He says, “And this story is such a part of you. But if you do not wish it told, then consider the matter dropped forever.”

She gives a little laugh, half-broken, and he is almost unsurprised when she rises from her chair beside him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He holds her close, as close as he ever has in the middle of the night, and feels her trembling although no tears fall from her eyes.

“One day,” she promises, nodding, “One day you’ll know. You have my word.”

He nods in agreement, and just holds her closer.

Finally, she pulls away, and on impulse he pulls her back down again, so she is sat in his lap. She is a small, slight thing, still underweight from starvation, and even at her fullest he imagines she’d be a tiny slip of a woman. Even with his leg, his weaknesses, he can cradle her close as he used to Bae, and wrap his arms around her middle to hold her tightly.

He expects her to sigh and move away, to be reminded that she is broken, perhaps even beyond repair, and that his arms are not wanted here. That she is here in body but not yet in spirit.

And yet, when she does sigh, it is breathed against his neck, and her arms come to wrap around his torso, to help to hold her in place.

It is the best place in the world, he finds, sat watching the flames dance in the grate with his wife curled in his lap, and his feet stretched out on the stool she normally occupies, warmed by the fire. He has not felt content since well before the first war, before he returned home a coward rather than a soldier, before everything was sent to Hell in a hand-basket.

But here, now, in this place, with his son asleep in his bed, safe and sound, with the door locked and he closely pressed to a wife he is coming to adore, content is exactly how he feels.

At some point, she presses her face against his shoulder, her lips to his skin, and he nearly jerks out of his seat in surprise. They have never gone further than kisses to the mouth, hands safely rested no higher or lower than the waist or shoulders. Belle drew boundaries, and he was happy to keep to them.

But now she nuzzles his neck, kisses twice more before she looks up at him, as if asking if he is alright with this development. As if seeking permission.

*He cannot form words, not with her so close, not with so much of what feels like longing - an emotion long buried, useless to a man who must always wish for nothing more than what he has - burning in his blood. And so he simply leans down and captures her lips with his, kisses her softly and sweetly, showing her in actions that he will follow where she leads.

He wonders if that irrefutable fact will extend beyond this very domestic kind of magic. He wonders if one day he will follow her into battle, and do so willingly with her as his guide.

The idea should terrify him, but he has never trusted someone not of his blood so much as he does her.

She deepens their kiss with a tiny little moan, and he is lost. One hand comes from her waist to cradle the side of her head, as her tongue plays with his, and one of her hands drifts lower, to brush against his chest in smooth circles.

“Belle,” he chokes, when they part, “Baby-steps, remember?”

She looks up at him, and presses a kiss to the palm pressed against her jaw “Maybe it’s time to try running,” she answers, her voice quiet but steady, clear and resolved.

He leans back down to kiss her again, a little harder, deeper, the hand on her cheek moving up to comb through her hair, softer than most peasants’ and smooth, the dark waves slipping through his fingers. They sit there for what feels like the best kind of eternities, just kissing in the firelight, as her hand explores his torso through his rough shirt, daring as it sweeps low across his stomach, and then back up over his chest.

He can hardly breathe, hardly move, his hands fluttering between her hips and her ribs, trying to find a safe space; trying to touch her everywhere.

His heart races as her kisses move from his mouth down his jaw, back to where she had so tentatively kissed his neck before, but with more confidence, now, and something almost akin to passion. He has no idea how to respond: to kiss her back could involve hurting her or betraying his own incompetence, but to push her away could ruin everything they’ve worked to build.

His body betrays him; her tender caresses and tiny, stifled noises awaken something he had thought long buried by fear and by time, and he feels himself growing hard even as he wills himself to remain calm. He could so easily revert to how he was with Trassia, to releasing himself too early and disappointing her.

When she finds and sucks oh so lightly on his pulse point, he cannot help but groan and shift in his seat.

Her lips are at his ear, and she whispers, “Bae will hear.”

“We can stop,” he says, “Go to sleep.”

But she shakes her head, “No, not this time.”

“Oh?” he brings his hand to cradle her chin, and raises her head so that they are face to face, “And why is that? Why tonight?”

“Because-“ she stops, sighs, looks down in thought, “Because you let me go, and it made me realise how much I want to stay. How little this scares me, now.”

He nods, but there is a knot forming in his stomach. The idea of being together, of taking his wife to bed, may no longer frighten her, but he cannot boast the same thing. “Rum?” she asks, pressing a soft, reassuring kiss to his jaw, “What’s wrong?”

“What if it doesn’t work?” he breathes, and he doesn’t know where he finds the courage to voice his fears, but perhaps he can steal some of her bravery to fill the space where his should be, “What if-“

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she murmurs, cutting him off, “Do you want this?”

“Yes,” he replies, because it is impossible to lie to her, because he’s too afraid that she’ll see through his lies anyway, or worse, that she’ll believe them, “But-“

“Then that’s what matters.” She says, a little note of firmness in her voice,

“I’m not…” he swallows hard, smiles in well-worn self mockery, “I’m not very good at this. You’ll most likely find me lacking.”

She lets out a little laugh, quiet and a little broken still, “And you think I am what? A trained courtesan?”

“You’re doing well so far,” he admits, and she giggles. He knows how to smile with her far better than he knows to kiss and caress, but even this little moment feels too new for his fragile nerves. Still, it is more comfortable to sit and talk with her than to imagine all the very many ways he could disappoint her this evening.

“I snuck books,” she admits, “Back… well, before. When I was younger.”

“Do you miss them?” he asks, as she draws him to his feet, and he follows unthinkingly, his hands clasped in hers, “The books?”

She looks at him, frowns, and then nods, “Yes. More than papa or my old friends, or even life as a Princess of the realm, I think. Yes, I miss the books.”

“My intelligent, educated wife,” he murmurs, fondly, and squeezes her hand, “You must know so much about such a very many different things.”

“Hmm,” she smiles, and although the sadness in her eyes does not fade, there is a laughing little crease beside her eyelids as she pulls him backward across the room, toward the ladder to their bed, “Yes. I could tell you the exact traditions for the extraction and keeping of Agrabhan vipers, and the folklore surrounding their poisons. I could tell you the names of all the children of the King of the Southlands, and to which foreign prince or princess each is betrothed. And what good is any of that to me here?”

They have reached the staircase, and stopped. Once they climb the ladder, Rum knows, then there is no going back. She will kiss him, and he will fumble and fail and be unable to do anything but disappoint her, or worse, drive her further back into the fears she has so bravely escaped.

But she is smiling at him, and behind the grief that never leaves her gaze, there is the kind of courage, of self confidence, that he has never managed to gain. If she can be willing to do this, even with whatever dark and awful memories lurk in her past, then surely he can set aside his own petty little fears.

They have managed without this and been happily married all the same. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t happen at all, and what loss would that be?

So he allows her to lead him by the hand up to their straw bed, and they lie side by side, foreheads almost touching, breathing the same air.

“It is all knowledge.” He murmurs, in answer to her previous question, and she frowns in confusion.

“What is?”

“Everything you have in your head. You know of lands I have never even heard of, and even if we will never see them, it’s something to be valued.”

“It can’t keep us safe.” She murmurs, and he can see the tears threatening to fall, and kisses her to keep them at bay.

“Nothing can,” he replies, his hands tracing circles against her hips, needing movement to offset the nervous tension coiling in his stomach, “But if we don’t look outside, we can pretend otherwise for a while.”

“That sounds good.” She nods, and shifts closer, so they are pressed together without an inch of daylight between them. She kisses him again, her hands shifting and unsure at his waist, and he knows what comes next. They’re already half past the point of no return, and refusing to go further would only be at least as bad as continuing and failing. Better that she know what kind of incompetent coward she married; better that at least here, in their bed, there are no secrets between them.

With shaking hands - and amazed he can move at all to help her, when this could go wrong so very easily - he covers hers, and together they shift his loose trousers and underclothes from his hips, and he wriggles his legs to shift them off over his feet.

His tunic is long enough to preserve some modesty, but it doesn’t stop him from almost turning crimson as her eyes meet his. “Me next,” she says, voice quiet and more timid than he’s ever heard it, “Right?”

He nods, hands still shaking, eyes wide, and swallows hard as they do the same for her, her trousers and underwear joining his at the end of the bed.

They are still mostly covered, as modest as they usually are when they curl in their separate blankets in their shared bed and sleep side by side, and yet Rumpelstiltskin feels all at once entirely naked, vulnerable.

He takes some comfort from the fact that she appears the same, trembling as he is and swallowing hard when she meets his eyes.

From what he remembers, in a dim and distant past of the few village girls before his wife, and what Trassia had tried to impress upon him in their marriage, nervousness in a woman does not help things along. He is doomed to failure as a husband, at least in this area, but the least he can do is make her comfortable as he fumbles and falls apart.

So he kisses her again, slowly, and tries to find all the little hidden places he has learnt in her mouth that please her, that make her shiver and hold onto him. A month of practice has given him this much skill, at least, so she is breathing heavily when they part, her full lips swollen.

His mind is addled, from fear and from the very sensation of her skin against his, but he gropes for any knowledge he has of this at all, anything he can remember from his youth or his first marriage that could help.

He rolls them over, so that she is on her back, and tries running one hand down her front, cupping her breast through her tunic and kneading it gently with his palm and fingers. Perhaps he presses a little hard, or not enough, but when he looks back at her face and pauses she is staring at him.

“Is this all right?” he asks, “Tell-“ he pauses, swallows, “Tell me if something… If it feels good or doesn’t.”

“That… yes,” she nods, and lies back, her head on the rough pillow, “That feels good. Keep going.”

He does as she asks, repeats the motion, and is certain that he doesn’t imagine the little gasping sound she makes when his thumb brushes the tip. Emboldened by her response, he tries once more, and her eyes flutter closed.

He moves his hand across, does the same on the other side, brushing her nipple with his thumb through her tunic and massaging the soft flesh with his palm.

He leans down to kiss her, every movement of his hand and his lips tentative and soft. He wants to be able to stop the second he does something wrong, and figures that if he never does anything too much, the chances of failure decrease.

He has almost exhausted, even at this early stage, the very few bedroom acts he has any practice in, but there is one more thing he can try before giving up entirely. He trails his hand lower, from her breast and down her stomach, over the ribs he can feel even through her tunic and across the flat expanse of her belly, to rest on her hip.

He remembers the scandalous tales the boys had told when he was a lad, knows where he is supposed to place his fingers next. But in this moment, he is too nervous to move from this safe space, to touch lower, where it would be so easy to do something painful or just uncomfortable, and break the warm little spell that has been cast over the pair of them.

Her eyes flutter open at his stillness, and he rubs calming little circles on her side with his thumb, trying to summon whatever courage he has ever had and move further.

Somehow, the uncertainty in her bright blue eyes is what causes him to finally take action. He is comforted, perhaps more than he should be, by the fact that he is not alone in fearing whatever next step they are supposed to take. They are in this together; perhaps they always have been.

And so he brings his only-slightly trembling hand still lower, and up under the hem of her rough tunic, to brush the warmth between her legs. She goes still all over, rigid and tense, her legs clamping around his wrist to prevent him from going any further. “Belle?”

She stares at him, but her eyes are wide with incredulity more than fear, however present the fear may be. He curls his fingertips back, away, shifts so that all he can feel is her inner thighs and nothing higher, nothing more private than that, “Are you alright? Do you want to stop? I’m so sorry, I told you that I had no idea what to do…“ His apologies come in a useless babble, awkward and miserable. They should never have done this, and coward that he was he was too scared even to say no for the good of their tender little marriage.

“What…” she breathes, “What’re you doing?”

“I…” it dawns on him - how did he not know this before? - that through all that she might have done, or had done to her, there may be things in the martial bed that he knows better than she. “It’s supposed to help.” He finishes, lamely, “With… you know, the rest.”

“Oh.” She nods, but the fear in her eyes is wild and bright, “Right. Did…” she’s about to mention his first wife, before she stops herself, “I mean… it’s okay?”

“Let me try,” he says, summoning a soothing, almost sure tone from somewhere he cannot name. “I can’t promise anything, but… I think this is supposed to work better if… if you feel something before me.”

“Okay,” she breathes, deeply, and relaxes her thighs a little, allows him to move once more, “Okay,” she says it again and again, until it sounds as if she’s chanting, this one word a mantra.

He wishes he could stop, now, the fear of getting this wrong and ruining everything almost too much to bear. But he has to be the strong one here, a rarity in their relationship: he has to pretend at least for her sake that he knows what he’s doing, that all will be well.

He brings his hand up once more, brushes against her tender places, softly and slowly, trying to gauge her reaction. She is shaking all over, but she does not tense up again, doesn’t try to move him away.

He finds - entirely by accident - after a few minutes of soft exploration and her soft, rapid breathing, one place that makes her go stiff all over, and make an odd little sound. “Belle?” he asks, worried, hoping he didn’t find some long-lost scar, manage with his fumbling, unskilled hands to somehow hurt her.

“Yes,” she nods, “Um… yeah, that… that’s good. Keep doing that.” She manages a smile, a weak and fragile thing, but genuine. She means it. He’s managed to do something right.

He nods, a little shakily, and tries to repeat the motion. He tries twice more before he hits the right spot again, and she makes that same odd little noise. He wonders if that is the sound she makes with pleasure: he had never managed to do anything at all with his first wife to know what women would sound like if a man managed to please them in this way.

It’s easier, now, with this little bit of practice, to do the same twice or three times more, until she is shaking once more, but loosely, without the tension she had shown before.

He tries to ignore the little stab of wanting - and what an odd thing it feels now, to want after so long without wanting at all - that comes with feeling the moisture pooling between her thighs. He almost groans aloud, at knowing that somehow, despite his lack of any skill at all in this area, he has managed to do something right. That he has caused her to want too, and to want him at that.

“Stop,” she breathes, after a little while longer, and he does so immediately. He has probably done something too much, and now he has ruined it and confirmed his own fears. But he clamps down on that thought: if she is being brave then so shall he be. Just for once: just now. He can do this for her.

“What is it, love?” he asks, the endearment coming from his lips before he can stop it, “What’s wrong?”

“I… I’m not sure.” She frowns, “It’s just… a lot, you know? It’s good, it’s really good,” she reassures him, even now, “But it feels like… like something’s going to end. I don’t remember enough of my books to know…” she sighs in frustration, “It’s a little overwhelming.”

He actually manages a small smile, “I think that it’s a good thing?” he frowns too, thinking back, “I think it doesn’t matter so long as the same doesn’t happen to me.”

“Oh.” She laughs, a sound of total relief, and nods, “Okay, yes. That sounds right.”

“Okay?” he asks, still a little concerned, but she nods again.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. It was just a little much to handle for now.” She leans up, wraps her arms around his shoulders and kisses him again, “Maybe…” she murmurs against his lips, “Maybe we should just…”

He pulls back to see her gesturing between them, and guesses the rest. He swallows, hard. At least now, now that she looks so much more relaxed and has had at least a little pleasure, perhaps it won’t end so badly. It doesn’t stop his fears entirely, but it helps a little.

“Yes.” He nods, and manoeuvres them so that she is beneath him, so that their hips are aligned and everything is ready. “No time like the present, I suppose.”

She actually laughs, wonderful little thing that she is, as she kisses him once more, “You act as if you’re the one who fears this.” She says, fondly.

“I…” he looks at her a moment, wondering if this is the time to lie, to claim confidence and masculine understanding. But Belle is his wife, and she has seen him terrified and anxious and untrusting far more than she has seen him happy or self-confident. He barely even knew how to do those things anymore, until she showed up on his doorstep. She will not believe a brave lie, “I don’t… this is important, and I am usually terrible at important things.”

“Terrible isn’t a word I’d choose so far,” she whispers, and why does she keep kissing him? Why does it feel as if she is reassuring him, when she is supposed to be the one in need of soothing? “You’re not trying to hurt me, and that means the world.”

“I’d never want to hurt you,” he tells her, trembling with the effort not to bolt even now. He wonders if there is something deeply wrong with him, that even here, with his wife beautiful and willing beneath him, his fear outweighs even desire for her. “Never.”

“I know.” She nods, and her smile is just this side of tearful, “My husband, my tender-hearted husband.” She holds him to her, croons this in his ear, and so when he enters her they are clasped together, as close as is possible.

She makes some noise, some soft, whimpering noise against his cheek, and he cannot tell if it is in pleasure or pain. Slowly, he moves a little out of her and rocks back inside, and despite her soft little noises - pain, he thinks, most likely more than pleasure - she strokes the back of his head, fingers woven in his hair, as if to comfort him that he has not done something unspeakable, something wrong. Not yet, not yet, and this part he remembers. This part is doable, if not well or with any finesse.

He had not imagined the sensation of being inside her, of truly taking his wife, but he has to admit he that is grateful for it. Had he imagined this, every aspect of being with her - the tenderness and wonder; the warm, wet heat of her - then he would have most likely ruined it with eagerness, or worse, by pressuring her and hurting her heart.

He knows he cannot last long, not after such a long time without so much as touch, and certainly not with her kissing him and stroking his hair. He wishes he could bring her more pleasure first, that he knew what to do to make her feel just a little of how he does, of how glad he is that she didn’t let him succumb to fear, that they made it this far. He settles for kissing her, as well as he can while he loses his mind trying to hold back, only rocking against her to reduce the pain he causes, and bringing one hand from where it is braced beside her head to cradle her cheek.

He could love this woman, so very easily. He knows the truth of these things, that love is for youngsters, for children, that the moment there is anything close to it in this world then something greater will come to destroy it. But for this moment, this one fleeting moment with her face in his hand, and every inch of him surrounded by her arms and her body, yes, he loves her.

And it is with this thought that he loses his battle for control, and spills himself inside of her, his eyes briefly squeezing closed as the release rushes through him. He makes some embarrassing groaning noise which he buries in the side of her neck, and he apologises with a tender kiss pressed there, that he couldn’t do better than this even for her.

*But she is still petting his hair, even as he slips out of her and rolls them onto their sides, so he can hold her against him and murmur apologies into her hair.

“Why?” she asks, pulling back to look up at him, her arms wound around his neck still, “What are you sorry for?”

“You deserve better: you deserve someone who can please you, someone who can do more than this for you.”

“Hey,” she soothes, as if he is Baelfire after a nightmare, hugging him close for a moment “Shh, shh, it’s okay. We’re okay. Better than, even.” She is close to beaming as she looks back up at him, and it is as if the sun has come out, her smile brighter than he has ever seen it, “We did it. We’re married now, wholly and truly.”

“We’ll try harder next time,” he promises, not even realising that he is also promising a next time in with the deal, “I’ll spend more time on you.”

“It barely hurt at all,” she tells him, reading his mind through some power she has yet to explain, “Nothing compared to…” she stops, looks down, the lights in her eyes dying just a little, “Nothing I couldn’t understand, didn’t expect. Far less than I expected. And it won’t at all, next time,” she smiles again, agreeing to his proposal without the words having to be said aloud, “Next time we’ll know what to do.”

“Next time.” He promises, nodding, and then turns her gently over so that her back is pressed to his front, as they are most nights, as close as can be as he trails little kisses over her neck, and she wriggles in what he thinks might be delight.

They fall asleep that way, curled together and smiling, and Rumpelstiltskin hasn’t been so comfortable, so contented, in an eternity.

The nightmares come that night, of course they do. The nightmares come for them all, even on the best of nights. The soldiers in Rumpelstiltskin’s dream, though, no longer come for Bae. Instead, their leader has a face: he is the stranger, the one Baelfire saw. Sir Gaston, his wife’s former paramour. The man who knows her face and her voice, who would have held her as Rumpelstiltskin now does if things had gone differently.

In his dream, the worst part is her leaving. She doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight, just walks with dead eyes and a quiet mouth to the knight’s horse. She is being brave, saving them all. And he has to watch her go in silence.

He wakes in the small hours of the morning, and presses a kiss to his wife’s hair. He knows what he must do, he knows, and he wonders if he really did steal some of her courage in the night.

He stumps in silence through the house as he dresses, and grabs a roll of bread for breakfast. He hopes he can be back before his wife and child wake; he hopes he will come back at all.


	9. Chapter 9

Bae wakes early, to the sound of his papa hobbling around in the kitchen. It’s too early for spinning - they need the sun risen for the light to be good enough, and papa eats breakfast before he works, always - and yet Rumpelstiltskin is out of his bed and leaving their home.  
  
Bae knows that something important happened yesterday, that Belle and his papa have not agreed on what to do about the knight. He glimpses Rumpelstiltskin’s face as he passes Bae’s cubby, and it is set with something Bae has only seen a few times before: his papa is determined, his jaw set against the fear that so often grips him. Whatever he is leaving so early to do, he is terrified.  
  
Papa’s fear should not cause Bae to feel the same, but it does, every time. Papa is a coward, but he is also one of the few fathers in the village still able to look after his son. The few other men in the village of fighting age are sickly or lame, as Papa is. Papa is in the best shape of them all.  
  
Bae is not a coward, not like his papa, but he knows that Rumpelstiltskin does not fear the dark but what lurks within it. His fears are grounded in dangers Bae cannot yet imagine: wherever he is going that requires some form of bravery, Bae knows that he should not be made to go alone.  
  
Belle is asleep upstairs: Bae can hear her shifting, if he sticks his head out of the cupboard and listens hard.  
  
Papa will come home worse - perhaps he won’t come home at all, like Jorgan’s papa, who went out one morning and was never seen again - and Bae is almost a man now.  
  
So he slips from his bed and pulls on his day trousers and a fresh tunic. He slips on his heavy leather boots, the ones that cost a month’s worth of spun thread but have lasted three winters hence.  
  
And he runs from the house, and follows his papa into town.  
  
It is cool, this morning, late spring not quite yet summer. Bae is glad he thought to bring his cloak: Belle would get very cross, have his guts for stockings, if he caught a cold.  
  
He keeps to the side of the road, as his papa himself taught him. Papa is too busy trying to keep walking forwards, his head held high, trying to be confident when Bae can see he doesn’t mean it. He is heading for the centre of town, and Bae can guess a minute before his papa turns down the street where he is going.  
  
Papa is going to speak to Belle’s knight. Bae doesn’t know the whole truth of the matter - he is a child, after all, and Belle and papa are adults: they don’t share all of their secrets with him, and he is glad of it. Bae is ashamed, but it would scare him to hear some of his papa’s darker fears, some of the worst of the horrors of Belle’s past.  
  
He is brave, and sometimes brave people need to do the right thing without knowing all the reasons. Knowing too much makes the fear too strong to fight, and Bae does not want to have to cave to it, the way papa did.  
  
So he slips inside the inn after Rumpelstiltskin, and waits in the shadows as papa talks to the keeper behind the bar. Even in the early morning, the inn is dark and gloomy, and Bae has no trouble concealing himself. Papa must not know he is here: if he knows he will send Bae home, or worse, his nerve will break and they’ll scurry back together to hide once more.  
  
Papa nods, and takes a seat on one of the benches, as if he’s waiting for someone. Bae is close enough that breathing wrong could give him away, but at least he’ll hear what is said.  
  
A familiar tall, broad man comes down the stairs after a few minutes more, and papa sits up straight. He is always a small man, Bae’s father, but he is entirely dwarfed by the knight.  
  
“You said you have some information.” The knight says, and Rumpelstiltskin nods.  
  
“Yes,” he says, and only his son could have caught the faint tremor of terror in his voice, “Please take a seat.”  
  
The knight, ever honourable, does so. They face each other, Belle’s husband and her ex-lover, and Bae is afraid even to breathe. What if papa plans to shop Belle after all? What if they argued last night, and he has decided that the danger is too much to risk? Bae does not want to suspect his father of such things - Belle is family, now: she’s as much a part of Bae’s home as his papa or the spinning wheel - but the twisting, churning sensation in his gut won’t die no matter how badly he wishes it would.  
  
“You know where the woman I seek hides?” the knight gets straight to the point, and Bae is so proud of his father for meeting his eyes.  
  
“Possibly. I know someone who matches your description of her… but I know not if you will ever find her.”  
  
“Then why have you come here to speak to me?” the knight asks, and there’s a demanding, imperious tone to his voice despite its lack of true command. He could lead armies, if he so chose.  
  
“Because she might wish to speak to you, at some point. And I need to know that you won’t hurt her, or drag her to people to intend to, if she decides you are worth her time.”  
  
“You do know, don’t you.” The knight nods, and it isn’t a question, “You know where the princess is hiding.”  
  
“I know where a woman who might have once responded to that title dwells, yes.” Rumpelstiltskin replies, and only suspicion and war could have made Bae’s simply-spoken papa so evasive.  
  
“You are wasting my time.”  
  
“And you are frightening the people I care about.” Rumpelstiltskin counters, and Bae can see his hands shaking beneath the table. It must take everything papa has, he thinks, to speak so to a knight. Sir Gaston could have him hung for insolence at the soldiers barracks at dusk, and no one would stop him. “Please, I need your word. Without it… my family suffers. Everything burns. I need to know that you don’t want to capture her and harm her.”  
  
“You speak boldly for one disobeying the direct orders of the Duke.” The knight says, leaning back in his chair and narrowing his eyes, “What is to stop me from forcing the information from you myself?”  
  
“She said-“ papa stops, struggling, “She said that you and she… that you were close, a long time ago. Does that still mean something to you?”  
  
The knight sighed, and Bae could see the tension in every muscle of his papa’s body. If papa could walk for trembling knees on the way home, Bae would be very much surprised. He couldn’t blame him, either: one small conversation with this man had sent him tearing home and sobbing into Belle’s skirts.  
  
“Her father-in-law would have me haul her home in chains.” The knight says, and Bae tries not to cry out at the image. Belle in cuffs and manacles, scorned and mocked and hurt. It’s too much to bear.   
  
“Then you may never know where she hides.” Rumpelstiltskin says.  
  
“Gone my sunset,” the knight nods, “A brave choice.”  
  
“Nothing is brave, anymore,” Bae’s papa shakes his head, “Except for her.”  
  
“I do not do the bidding of the Ogre King,” the knight says, heavily, “And I wish to tell her that her father is on his death bed. He may pass at any moment, and he would his daughter safe before he dies.”  
  
Bae goes still all over, and can see his papa do the same. “And what happens then,” papa asks, slowly, “If the Duke dies and the war is not over?”  
  
“This war is about his daughter, not the Duke himself. The ogres will ravage his lands as retribution for their prince’s murder, and the prince’s is on her hands.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“She told you?” the knight stares at him, and for a moment they almost appear as equals, “Her letters to me, when he was alive, and…” he rubbed his hands over his face, and suddenly Sir Gaston was not a fearsome Knight of the Realm, but a man like Bae’s father, weakened by worry and fear. “She didn’t tell me anything about her life there, but one letter had blood on it - her fingers were bleeding, I think - and I came for her. To rescue her. But they threatened to kill me if I ever returned, and I was not allowed to so much as see her.”  
  
“She refuses to share details,” Rumpelstiltskin confides, “But it sounds as if her actions were justified.”  
  
The knight nods, “I would have slain him myself.”  
  
“Then… leave. Please, I-“ papa’s nerve seems to fail him, but he continues on regardless, “She is safe here, you have my word on that. I can pass on a message, so long as you leave and take your soldiers with you.”  
  
“High demands from a peasant lower than my stable boy.” The knight notes, but he does not look entirely displeased, “But they still search for her. The Ogre King has put a king’s ransom on her head.”  
  
“They won’t find her.”  
  
“So they’ll tear the dukedom apart for nothing. Do you think that will stop them?” he sighs, “We only survive now because the Duke holds the Dark One in thrall, and he protects our lands. But when he dies, then that connection will be severed. Only one of his own blood would be able to control him, and if Belle does not wish to come home… I’d hate to think of what the Dark One would do here, if he found his freedom. Never mind the ogres.”  
  
Papa looks up at him at the sound of her name. They’d known - of course they had - that they spoke of the same woman. But hearing the name spoken somehow puts them on some new ground, and papa looks terrified at the prospect.  
  
“What do you mean wish to come home?” he demands, “What choice does she have? Show her face… and be tortured to death by creatures too terrifying to contemplate?”  
  
“Or allow the country to burn with her, as she hides her face in shame.” The knight nods, “Her position is terrible, but it is what it is.”  
  
“She is safe here.” Rumpelstiltskin says, almost firmly, “And that is the end of it. You will not find her.”  
  
“Then we are finished.” The knight nods, and stands, “Please tell her what I have said. I will stay another three days in the village, if she has need of me.”  
  
“She won’t.”  
  
“Then my final three days of searching will most likely be fruitless.” But the knight has an odd little smile on his face as he inclines his head politely, “But she is an unpredictable woman, our princess. Who knows what she will decide? Perhaps she’ll act differently to how you would have it.”  
  
Papa nods stiffly, and leaves without another word, his hobbling footsteps quick and hard on the hard floors.  
  
Bae thinks to follow him, but he had heard something in the knight’s story that Papa - in his thoughts of protecting Belle, and Bae is so glad that that was his intention the whole time that he could burst - seemed to have missed.  
  
“Sir?” he approaches the table, and the knight looks up in surprise.  
  
“It does not do to lurk in corners, boy,” he says, but his smile is almost sly, conspiratorial, as if he is imparting wisdom rather than scolding, “It could get you stabbed, and with good reason.”  
  
“My papa needed another pair of eyes. He should not have to do scary things alone.” He holds his head high, because Bae is brave and small and one has to counteract the other.   
  
“You are the informant’s son?”  
  
“My papa is not an informant. He is trying to help.”  
  
“Fine, alright.” The knight nods, conceding the point, “Wait… haven’t I met you before? Spin-something, right?”  
  
“We met yesterday in the marketplace,” Bae reminds him, “My name is Spindleshanks.”  
  
“No it isn’t. No one gives their name freely to strangers, not if they wish to keep what power they have.” The knight smiles, “You’re a decent liar, boy, I’ll give you that, and you’re not a fool.” He spreads his hands, “Ask your question, then.”  
  
“You mentioned… the Dark One. In thrall. He’s the sorcerer who comes when the soldiers enlist new soldiers, isn’t he?”  
  
“Indeed he is, although ‘demon’ might be closer to the mark.”  
  
“He is controlled by the Duke?”  
  
“The blood of the Duke fell on the blade,” the knight confides, “I was there for the ceremony, as was… well, the blood of her family is in the spell, on the dagger that bears his name. Only she can control the Dark One.”  
  
“And if she doesn’t? Or won’t?”  
  
The soldier shrugged, “Then as retribution for his enslavement, I imagine his vengeance would be swift. Upon all of us. And if you think ogres are cruel,” he gives a low whistle, a grimace, “I’ve seen the Dark One rip a man apart from head to toe, as the poor creature still breathed. And that was without the power freedom would give him. The princess’ only choices to save any of us, would be to wield his powers through the dagger, or to kill him and take the powers from him altogether.”  
  
“And that would end the war?”  
  
“If she returned as the slayer of the Dark One, with all the power that goes with such an act?” the knight nodded, “Aye, I think the ogres would make peace.” He leans in, smiles at Bae, “You’re a bright lad, but listen close: repeat a word of this to anyone but your father and the princess, and you will live to regret it. And no more eavesdropping: any man could have you whipped for that.”  
  
Bae swallows, the knight’s smile having melted into something dark, serious, even threatening. “Now, run along.”  
  
He nods, biting his lip to keep from doing something childish and weak like bursting into tears or screaming, and goes as fast as he can without running out from the tavern and into the street.  
  
And then he runs, as fast as his feet can carry him, the soles of his boots pounding on the dirt road. The sun is risen, now, the air warming. It is almost summer, after all, and yet Bae’s blood is winter in his veins.  
  
“Bae?” his father’s voice stops him, and he looks up from his watching of the ground moving beneath his feet to see that his papa has turned, and is frowning at him, “What in seven hells are you doing out so early?”  
  
“I-“ Bae tries to find a lie to tell, but nothing comes to mind. He hangs his head, miserable, and catches up with his father with trudging feet, “I followed you.” He admits, and waits for the admonishments to begin.  
  
“I see.” Rumpelstiltskin nods, “And why did you do that?”  
  
“Because you shouldn’t have to do scary things by yourself!” Bae says, “And I was afraid… I was afraid you would just disappear. It happens.“  
  
“It’s just the village, boy,” his papa says, gently, and Bae is almost surprised when his arm comes around his shoulders, “We’ve lived here all your life.”  
  
“People go out; they don’t always come back. I need you to always come back.”  
  
“I will, son,” Rumpelstiltskin promises, although Baelfire isn’t going to fool himself into thinking that such a promise can be kept without question, “Always. But you need to stay where you’re safe: what if I’d come home to find you missing, hm?”  
  
“I’m sorry, papa.” He says, and feels his father press a kiss to the top of his head, holding him in close. They stay like that a moment longer in the cool morning air, just holding on for dear life. Bae knows that his papa is not the bravest, nor the strongest or most skilled of men, but nothing could make him feel safer than this embrace after the fears of the past few days.  
  
“It’s alright, Bae, don’t worry. You’re safe, and we’re almost home.” They start walking, and soon the hill is cresting and their small group of houses can be seen on the horizon.  
  
“You talked to a knight today, papa,” Bae says, after a long and comfortable silence. His father’s arm doesn’t leave his shoulders, and he hopes that Rumpelstiltskin can hear the pride in his voice, the respect. His father, the coward, defended the woman they both love today from a man who could have had them both killed with just a word. And today, Bae is proud to call himself the son of Rumpelstiltskin the Spinner.  
  
He feels his papa’s hand squeeze his shoulder, and knows that the message has been received.  
  
“Bloody terrifying man, that,” Rumpelstiltskin confides, and Bae actually manages to laugh, “But hopefully gone soon, eh? How much did you hear?”  
  
“All of it,” Bae admits, “Belle… she’s in a lot of trouble, isn’t she?”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin smiles, a sad, small kind of smile, “Of all the runners in all the lands, we managed to end up with the one who’s both runaway royalty and wanted for treason.”  
  
“I talked to him after. He said… papa, what do you know about the Dark One?”   
  
They’ve crested the hill, and reached the little road leading to their home.   
  
“The sorcerer who works for the Duke?” Rumpelstiltskin frowns, “Not a lot, I’m afraid. The knight said something about his being in thrall… I don’t remember.”  
  
“I stayed behind,” Bae admits, “To ask about it. It seemed-“  
  
“Where in seven hells have you been?” a voice, angry and female, comes from in front of them, and in moments Belle is running from the house, hurling herself into Rumpelstiltskin’s arms, “You just vanished!”  
  
She clings to her husband, and Bae breaks away so that Rumpelstiltskin can hug her back, his slightly bewildered arms coming to hold her close. She is crying into the side of his neck, Bae can see, and he is suddenly more than a little uncomfortable to be witnessing this.  
  
Finally, she pulls back to stand on her own, and surprises them both by smacking first Bae and then his father across the backs of their heads, “Foolish, gormless idiots!”  
  
Bae would be offended by Belle’s accusations, if he weren’t so scared by the raw anger on her face, “I’m… sorry?”  
  
“You should be! Brainless child, vanishing before daybreak. No note, nothing, just gone!” she stands, breathing hard, hands on her hips, “Bae, wait inside. I’ll talk to you later.”  
  
“But, Belle-“ he wants to explain, but the force of her glare turns back on him from his father and he is quelled into silence.  
  
“Now, Bae. Your father and I need to have a little word.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin looks almost as frightened as he had when he’d been with the knight, and Bae doesn’t really want to abandon him to Belle’s wrath. On the other hand, he’d also rather not deal with any of that rage turned on him, and this really does seem like more of a married thing…  
  
“Bye!” he almost runs into the house, and sets to work straightening both his bed and his parents’, cleaning the surfaces and readying the food for their breakfast. In Bae’s experience, doing chores seems to lessen scoldings when they come.  
  
He can hear Belle and Rumpelstiltskin outside, although their voices are muffled. His mind rests on their knew knowledge the Dark One, of Belle’s past - although he truly wishes to know no more: it is somehow terrifying, the idea that grown-ups can hurt so much and hide it so well - even as his hands are busy with the cleaning.  
  
He hopes they’ll get a chance to talk calmly, and soon. The twisting in Bae’s gut has returned, but this time it is a kind of uneasy, quiet terror of an unknown future. It is strong enough to have him wishing he were still a tiny child, capable of hiding his face from horrors without shame or admonishment.


	10. Chapter 10

Belle awakens from her slumber with a terrified scream on her lips. She would be been distressed - once upon a time she had sobbed through whole mornings - but now is an everyday occurrence, and it can be dealt with if not banished entirely.

Every night she dreams of ogres and castle dungeons, of scourges and flayings, and every day she spends trying in small ways to forget.

But she wakes up this morning, aching a little but in a less harmful way than she ever has before: she brought this small pain upon herself, and her husband had done all he could to decrease it. She is surprised, in fact, that there is any pain at all: Belle is hardly a maiden untouched, after all, and she had rather assumed her first husband had broken all the protections her body could have mustered.

That she aches so wonderfully reminds her that there is a new life, a fresh and untainted life, here in this bed with Rumpelstiltskin. A chance to start again, and perhaps to become whole and unbroken, the way she once was.

She rolls over, a small and sleepy smile on her lips, and intends to wrap herself around her husband, to hold him and perhaps kiss his sleeping mouth. She wishes to show some of the wonder, the gratitude, and whatever other emotions she can feel webbing around her heart, that she could not have expressed properly the night before.

Instead she finds the bed cold, empty, the blankets pushed aside and her husband’s sleeping-clothes crumpled at the foot.

She calls his name; no one answers. Again, louder, and again as a terrified shout, and still nothing. Silence. Dead silence.

She runs desperately through the house, and finds, to her horror, Bae gone as well, his bed unmade and his boots and cloak also missing.

That is when she starts to panic. She calls outside, through the windows, back up to the attic and out into the forest. Nothing. 

Fear grips her harder, squeezing breath from her body, crushing her lungs and pounding in her heart.

They are gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. 

She has allowed her husband to do his duty, she had stroked his hair and held him and he had been so scared, so very uncertain, almost as bad as she herself and so much worse at masking it. She had enjoyed having him so close, knowing that now truly, unbreakably, she was his wife and he her husband. She had had her husband take her, lead him upstairs as if she were a wanton and asked him to claim her.

She had wished it and willed it and enjoyed the act of it, when the fear left her, when he was so tender and she had felt safe.

And such things must bring the demons crashing at the door: Belle learned that in the hardest way possible.

Rumpelstiltskin is not a monster, not even a little bit. He is the least monstrous creature she has ever met. But even son, there are enough true demons out there ready to skin Belle alive, to tear her skin from her bones and punish her for every moment of happiness she found.

She slams the door with a pounding heart and shaking bones, and lets out a stifled little cry as she crumples to the floor.

She curls under Bae’s bed, arms locked around her knees, and sobs. Her mouth is open, a silent scream, but no sound escapes. She is safe if she is silent and hidden: she is safe if no one knows she even breathes.

The idea of the house never ringing with their voices again, left alone and dark and abandoned, makes her heart pound and her stomach turn, her skin covered in cold sweat and prickling nerves. She hasn’t been so rawly and purely terrified since she arrived here, and even longer since she worried so fiercely for someone other than herself. 

She has always been so scared of being found: now she is desperate not to be lost. 

She cradles her forehead on her knees, and unbidden sees behind her eyes the spinning wheel, still and gathering dust, its owner never to return. Bae’s toys left scattered on the floor - how many times had she told him to pick them up, and he had simply left them there anyway - untouched and unplayed with, left to rot, the boy who loved them so much forgotten. Of she herself, so recently having found a home and family, left alone in the village, too scared even to open the front door

For what if it had been the soldiers who took her newly-found family, her husband and the boy who is becoming more her son with every passing day? How could she show her face outside, be seen, when they could be waiting for her at any moment?

What if it is Belle herself the soldiers are looking for, and they took Rumpelstiltskin and Bae in punishment for not betraying her, or as bait to lure her out?

She decides, in her terror-soaked mind, it best to stay inside, and hide, and wait for a miracle or for her world to end.

But then, as sweet and beloved as music, she hears her boys’ voices coming up the road to the house, and they are not angry or terrified or urgent. 

She is not able to make out the words themselves, only the voices of her husband and her boy, but they are warm and safe and almost happy, and she tears from the house with tears drying on her cheeks, and throws herself into Rumpelstiltskin’s bemused arms.

He is still a little in shock, she thinks, even now that she is stood at arms length and Bae has been dismissed back into the house.

This was not a discussion a child should hear, after all: Bae does not need, on top of all the other horrors in his world, to hear his parents fighting.

For that is what Belle is, she knows: she is Bae’s mama as much as she is Rumpelstiltskin’s wife, even if the boy himself may never call her that. For who else but a parent would become so frantic over an hour’s disappearance? Who could be so ready to scold, and all for love and the anxiety it brings?

But Rumpelstiltskin is another matter: he knew what he was doing. He left her in their marital bed, the morning after their first night as man and wife in deed as well as in word, and he has to see how cruel that act was.

“Belle-“ he starts, but she doesn’t let him continue.

“You left.” She cuts him off.

“I know, and I’m s-“

“No, husband, don’t apologise, not now.” She realises as she says it that she means it: if he apologises she will fall apart, she will sob and weep once more, and she won’t do that. Inside, alone, she had indulged in the frightened girl who ran from the dead ogre prince and was betrayed countless times along the way. Here she must be his wife, and the mother to his son. She must stand tall and say her piece.

“I hoped you wouldn’t wake until I returned,” he says, helplessly, “Please, Belle…”

“There is nowhere, nowhere, you could have needed to be before sunrise. I always rise before you, you know that, and so do I. Do you know how terrible it was, to wake and find that you had not only left but taken Bae with you?”

“Bae snuck along,” he explains, “He was supposed to remain behind.”

“While you… what?” she asks, “What were you possibly doing in the village before the sun was even up? The shops don’t open until an hour after sunrise, and-“ she is getting faster, louder, her voice rising in pitch to keep from catching and breaking.

He hears it, when she cannot speak anymore, when the tears start to fall and the knot in her throat is choking her, suffocating her, and his arms come around her immediately, holding her gently - so gently she might break from it - against him.

Her arms come up under his, and wrap around him as she buries her head in his chest. “I thought you weren’t coming home,” she manages to confess around her sobs, “Both of you.”

“We’ll always come home,” he soothes, one hand stroking her hair, the other holding her firmly against him. His staff is off somewhere on the ground: neither of them notice. “Or if not, you’ll be right there with us.”

“Don’t lie to me, Rumpelstiltskin,” she pleads, but she clings on for dear life. She had wanted to be so angry - and she is, furious in fact - but she is too relieved to see him, and she had been so very, very scared, that it seemed ungrateful to shout and scream when he was close enough to hold, and she had prayed so hard for it to be so. “Please.”

“I’m not,” he denies, chin rested on top of her head, “Belief is not a lie, is it? As long as we both believe that, then who can tell us we’re wrong?”

She pulls back, sniffles, but her arms are still locked about his torso, his hands splayed on her back. She smiles, but it’s weak, “When did you become a philosopher?”

He smiles, an oddly happy, almost smug little smile that she does not recognise on her husband, but is wonderful and a little wicked all the same. She imagines he must have looked like this when he was younger, before war turned him quiet and grave.

“Well,” he says, reasonably, “I passed the night with a truly beautiful woman in my arms. My sleep was bound to be somewhat disturbed: had to pass the time somehow.”

She can see that he is dodging her question, hiding something behind his eyes - dark and soft as fresh, soft earth and containing just as much sorrow - and yet she giggles, because she can’t help it. She ducks her head, and feels herself blush just a little: it has been so very long since someone thought her beautiful.

“Why, husband,” she smiles, “That sounds like something more suited to a young suitor than a husband to his wife.”

“Well, dear, you forbade me to apologise for this morning,” he reminds her, “I thought then that flattery might be a better course of action.”

She makes a small noise, somewhere between amusement and offence, and draws one hand back to swat him on the arm, “And here I thought you intended to court me,” she sniffed, “As if we were more than married for convenience.” 

He gives her a funny look, frowning, his head tipped to one side as he examines her face. She feels warm under his scrutiny, her stomach knotted in another way entirely, and she wonders if this is simply the way of married men and women.

She didn’t get a chance to find out last time, after all. Her first husband was anything but a man.

“Would you like to be courted, Belle?” he asks, and she can hear the offer in his question. 

She loses her words, all of a sudden, and wonders if the night before didn’t do for him as much as for her. She no longer feels nervous - in fact, she is comfortable and warm - in his embrace: perhaps she is not the only one who woke this morning with a little more confidence in her.

Even if it was, for her at least, torn and tattered a little by the ensuing fear of loss and missing family. Even if she did spend the early hours curled under her husband’s son’s bed, waiting for soldiers to rip the last of her to pieces.

But she is blushing - how long has it been since she blushed? 

“Perhaps,” she says, finally, and all of a sudden she is sixteen and a girl, flirting with one of the younger knights of her father’s court. Before Gaston asked for her hand; before she left him to make a bargain, and regretted every moment.

And for all that is was he who asked the question, Rumpelstiltskin stares at her like she’s taken hime entirely by surprise, and has no idea what to do next.

Belle is in much the same position.

They meet in the middle, with a kiss that is both as tender as any the night before, and more desperate than any they’ve ever shared in their two months of marriage.

“But,” he says, heavily, as they part, “There are other things to discuss first.”

“Rum?” the dread is building in her gut again, and she looks up with a worried frown, remembering at long last that he never answered her question as to where he vanished to so early in the morning. “What did you do?”

He looks suddenly so guilty, so afraid, that the terror returns in a small, muted dose.

“Rum?”

“Inside, dear,” he says, his voice once more low and grave, “Not out here.”

She nods, and takes his hand - she needs his hand in hers, his arm around her, something firm to remind her that he is here with her and alive and not in some dungeon somewhere, or worse, left for dead by the roadside - following him inside.

“Bae,” she says, when her eyes meet those of their boy, hurriedly sweeping the floor, “Would you-“

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin cuts her off, “No, he must stay. He heard things I did not.”

“Heard things?” she asks, puzzled, as they settle around the table. Her hand doesn’t leave her husband’s. “From whom?”

Rumpelstiltskin looks at her, as if bracing himself for a blow, “From your knight.”

She stops dead for a moment, her whole body freezing, words and sounds caught in her throat. She doesn’t know if the gnarling, grasping twisting of her stomach is betrayal or anger or just pure, primal fear, but she lets out a horrified gasp, one trembling hand to her mouth.

“Why?” she demands, once she can get the words out, “Why would you go and talk to him? To lead him here?”

“No, no,” he tries to soothe her but Belle is wound tight as a bowstring and ready to explode, “No, of course not.”

“Did you tell him you knew me?” she asks, “Did you… did you tell him we were married? Did you lay your neck out to let him sever it himself, or did you offer to cut your throat on your own?”

“Belle,” Rumpelstitlskin squeezes her hand, as she grows hysterical once more, “Belle, he doesn’t know our names, and we were not followed.”

“He knows your faces.”

“And will he come looking?” he asked, “No. He gave his word to not find you without your permission.”

She looks to Bae for confirmation, and the boy - his eyes wide and worried, glancing between his parents and chewing his lip anxiously - nods. “He did, Belle. I promise.”

And Bae wouldn’t lie, and Gaston - the Gaston she was raised with and came to trust, if not love - is a man of his word.

“But,” Rumpelstiltskin says, heavily, “There is more. He won’t come for you… because he wishes you to go on your own.”

Belle lets out a shrill little giggle, high-pitched and almost eerie, “And why does he imagine I would do that? There is a price on my head, and soldiers hunting me down. I could not be taken into my childhood home in any way but bound in chains.”

“He’s not asking that you be captured,” Rumpelstiltskin explains. “He… your father is… your father will fade soon. He’s dying.”

She was shaking, silent, sobbing but silent. To make a sound would be to make a cry like a wounded animal, and to fall apart.

“Then what?” she swallowed, hard, around her grief. There would be time to hurt later, after all. “Why do they even need me? There is hardly a duchy left to rule!”

Bae takes over as his father glances to him, a little helplessly. The boy straightens, frowns a little, and for a moment the little boy she knows now vanishes into the young man he will so soon become, grave and intelligent and serious. “The Dark One. He told me that without you he’ll be free, and then we’re all in danger.”

She feels her heart pound, her stomach sink. So they’ve done it: they’ve done as her father had always threatened, and summoned the Dark One to their service. A creature such as he will not wish to be bound to a petty lord’s service: his revenge, upon his freedom, will be swift and great.

“Oh, gods.” She breathes, and felt something inside her break.

“The ceremony,” Rumpelstiltskin continues, unhappily, “Involved your father’s blood. Only one with the same can control him.”

“It has to be me.” She says, numbly. 

Really, it is typical, even predictable: she should have seen it coming. She herself had begun the research into summoning the power contained in the dagger her father kept in his war room, and when she left she had hardly imagined it would be abandoned.

The blood of the blood on the blade.

“Your knight appears convinced so, yes.” Rumpelstiltskin confirms, heavily, “Which is why we have to leave. Tonight. We have to go before he can break his word and find you.”

“Go?” she gives a choked little laugh, “Go? Where? Do we find a realm-jumper and leave this world to burn? Do we try to be villagers in the town over, and the next, and the next, one step ahead?”

“We leave.” He repeats, “They’re asking for you to give your life, and you’ve already given so much. Too much.”

“Running won’t solve anything.” She cries, “Running only makes them chase faster.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he begs, “You don’t have to solve anything! You have done nothing but try to solve things, and-“ he stopped, horrified, as if appalled by the words which now hung between them.

“And look at what a mess I made in the process.” She finishes, coldly, calmly, “Yes, thank you for that.”

“Belle-“ Bae starts, but she can’t be a mother right now. She can’t pretend to be more than she is: a frightened, overburdened, terrified little girl who can never, ever run, not fast enough, not far enough.

No matter how deep she tries to hide, how small and dark and warm the hole in which she buries herself, the world always finds her.

“Bae, go out and start the spinning.” Rumpelstiltskin instructs, “I’ll be out in a while.”

Bae nods, and Belle thinks the boy glad to be gone.

It can’t be easy, she thinks, growing up in a world where adults cry and scream and run as hard as children do. Her childhood had been built in peacetime: she can’t imagine how she would have made it this far without those memories to hold her steady.

“That isn’t what I meant, Belle,” he says, urgently, taking both her hands in his “You know that. I just… this isn’t a problem you should have to give your life to solve.”

She is crying, tears streaming down her cheeks, but her heart is hard and resolved. She has made her decision; she cannot not run as he would.

“I gave myself to the ogres,” she says, her voice trembling but clear, “Me. And I broke that promise, and murdered their chosen son in his sleep. The war is being fought because of my betrayal, and so they summoned the Dark One because of me. This is more my problem than anyone else’s.”

“You had no choice,” he says, “They could not expect you to endure whatever horrors you have been made to face. No one is strong enough for that, no one. This isn’t your fight.”

“My words on the parchment, his blood on my hands, my blood on the blade.” She says, eyes clear, choice made, “This is nothing but my fight. And it’s not a sacrifice, not at all: I have to go and face the fire.” She looks down at their hands, knotted and tangled together between them, and a tear splashes on his hand and hers, “And I have to be there. If only to say goodbye.”

He stares at her, “You won’t be safe.”

“If it were Bae.” She says, quietly, “If you had lost Bae, and you were dying, wouldn’t you want him to come home? Wouldn’t you need to see him one last time?”

She sees the moment he understands, the moment when he realises that she is lost in this. The Dark One is a matter too terrifying to even contemplate, but she had read enough to know that the dagger - under the right circumstances - could be destroyed.

Perhaps, as the girl who killed an ogre in his own bed, the title of the woman who slew the Dark One would make her fearsome.

Perhaps she could make a deal and end the war, with that kind of influence.

She needs time, sleep, calm, in order to formulate such a plan. But the truth of it, the heart of it, is that she cannot allow her beloved father to die without so much as kissing his forehead and saying goodbye.

The thought brings a lump to her throat, but it needs to be done.

Even if he has sent his soldiers for her, and asked for her returned in chains. If he is dying someone else may be running things: if he is dying perhaps he would welcome her home.

Perhaps she could go home.

“Will you come with me?” she asks, voice shaking and weak as she swallows hard, “You don’t have to. I won’t make you. You can run and I’ll go alone.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” he says, although he sounds no braver or surer than she does, “You’ll always be with us.”

She laughs, sniffs, swallows hard, and his thumb comes to rub the tears from her cheeks. 

“Does that mean you’ll drag me with you when you bolt?” she asks, “Or that you’ll come with me to the castle?”

“It means.” He takes a deep breath, shuddering, terrified, “That we must do what we must.”

“And what is that?”

“You won’t be happy… and so none of us will… unless you feel you have done what needs doing.”

“I have to say goodbye,” she says, “And I have to make sure that my homeland is safe from the monsters I unleashed.” He doesn’t argue the point: he doesn’t have to. “So I need to go back to the castle. If only for a day or two.” She looks at him, at his warm eyes so clouded by fear, his desperation to be brave for her and his certainty that he can’t be. “But I promise: I won’t do anything to put Bae in danger. Or you. I couldn’t-“ she swallows hard, sniffs, “You come with me, hold my hand, and in return… in return I keep us as safe as I can.”

“I don’t-“

“Do we have a deal, Rumpelstiltskin?” she asks, needing his agreement. Needing him to understand that she would do anything to keep them safe.

“Belle…” he looks down at their hands, clasped tight, and she hopes he can see that she never intends to truly let go. He is her family now, him and Bae, and this is what needs doing to keep it that way. That is all that matters. “Alright. Yes. Deal.” 

“Then to the castle we go.” She give him a smile, small and pitiful but true, and he responds in kind.

He kisses her a moment later, out of nowhere, as if he is a boy who has just gotten up the courage to do so. She leans in, kisses him back, curls herself around his side where he sits on the bench, and lets his warmth cover her, envelop her.

He will keep her safe: he faced a knight and a sordid history, and a story of demons for her this morning. Her tender, fearful, harmless husband, and he braved the wolves for her.

So she will keep him safe, and the boy she wishes more each day was truly hers. She will do anything that is needed to keep them with her, to keep them from having to fight or die. They are her family, and she will keep them safe.


	11. Chapter 11

Rumpelstiltskin sits, calm and still, and tries desperately to breathe. He truly believes that it is only Belle’s arm about his waist, her dark head on his shoulder, her fingers wrapped around his, that keep him from falling apart entirely.

He has never been further from the village than Longbourne, save for his time on the front lines. He does not think on the days he spent as a soldier, not ever, even if his leg is a daily reminder.

Now his wife wishes for him to hold her hand and leap into an abyss, and all Rumpelstiltskin can do is sit and stare at the rough grain of their kitchen table, and hope to all the Gods that his nightmares are worse than reality. That the horrors to be faced won’t tear them all limb from limb.

She promised to keep them safe.

Belle is a princess and an ogre-slayer. She is brave and bright, and he would follow her to the ends of the Earth if she promised to keep a hold of his hand as she did.

It seems, bizarrely, that she feels the same way.

‘You hold my hand’, she’d said. That is all that she asks of him, and in return she will do all she can to keep them safe, to keep them from whatever dangers might lie in wait.

He thinks it should be strange, out-of-place, for a warrior such as his wife to need the reassurance of a cowardly spinner. But then, he knows her now better than anyone else, and beneath the bravery and nobility of her soul, Belle is also a tired, scared girl who is far too far from her home. She had called him and Bae family, and that they are.

And you don’t abandon family.

“So,” she says, after a long silence, “How do we plan to break into my own castle?”

He looks down at her, one eyebrow raised, and his voice is a little tight as he says, “Well, dear, it is your castle. Know of any decent tunnels, passages behind bookcases?”

“All of them.” She returns, shrugging her shoulders and snuggling in closer to his side, “But they won’t help us. We need to be able to move freely and in public: sneaking around won’t do it.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t allow their own princess to march up to the front doors and inside?”

“No.” She sighs, “Not anymore, and not like this.” She thinks a moment, and then she goes still, looking up at him with bright, inspired eyes, “But then, I’m not a princess anymore, am I? I’m just a spinners’ wife, and they always need tradesmen.”

“Are you suggesting we enter as paupers? Hide in plain sight?”

“Yes.” she nodded, “Exactly. They wouldn’t want me back, and if they did I’d never be allowed to leave again. But a harmless spinner and his family could pass in easily.”

“They’ll take one look at you and know that you’re no peasant.” He waves a hand, dismisses the idea, because unfortunately he believes it could work. He doesn’t want to do this: he doesn’t want to go into the belly of the beast with only his walking stick and his family for protection. He doesn’t want to have to throw himself on the fire for them, and it terrifies him to know that, if it came to that, he would.

If something came for Bae, or for Belle, Rumpelstiltskin could and would sacrifice everything to save them.

He is a coward, but there are exceptions.

A fact that scares him all the more.

“I’m not entirely sure if that was a compliment or a genuine concern,” Belle says, but there is a much-missed smile creeping at the corners of her lips.

“A little of both, I’d reckon.” He says, smiling back.

“Either way, I’m too tired to think of a better option.” she says, her eyes slipping closed, “And the sun has only just risen.”

“You’ve had a difficult morning, dear,” he reminds, gently, “I’m sure we could survive a few hours unsupervised, if you wished to go back to bed?”

She blinks her eyes open, and gives him a glare he thinks is only partly in jest, “Rumpelstiltskin, the last time the pair of you were unsupervised you vanished on me. I will not have you spirited away by the fairies because I wished to nap away the morning.”

“We’d only be outside,” he protests, because he can see her eyes still red-rimmed with what must have been quite a storm of tears, and she is pale as a sheet, “You need to rest.”

“I’m fine.” she pulls away from him, and he misses her warmth against him instantly, “I’ll wake up once we have the day started properly. Go and see to Bae,” she instructs, “I’ll see about fixing a late breakfast.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, a little quickly, realising that he sounds fussy and overly-protective but unable to stop. She looks worn out, thin and shaking, and he wishes nothing more than to be able to hold her for a while longer, warm her and cheer her a little more before having to leave her to her work.

“Yes,” she insists, but her smile is soft, “Really. I’m a tough old thing, I’ll survive.”

He looks at her a little critically, and finds himself disagreeing with her assessment: she’s tough, yes, strong and brave like the best of the land’s warriors, but she’s also very small and very young. She needs rest.

“Come on,” he says, in the voice he uses when Bae is sick and needs to remain indoors. He wraps an arm back around her waist, and helps her to her feet, “Come on.”

“Where’re we going?” she asks, confused, as he leads them away from the table and toward the ladder to the attic, the same way she lead him the night before.

Their first night together, truly as man and wife, was less than a day ago. Rumpelstiltskin finds himself a little surprised by that: it feels like forever since he lay down, since he rested. Facing knights errant with tales of demons, and comforting crying, endangered wives will do that, he supposes.

“You’re going back to bed, dear,” he says, gently but firmly, “You’re in this state because of me and Bae, and I’m not letting you make it worse.”

“I’m fine!” she protests, but it’s weak, and her head lolls on his shoulder as they reach the ladder.

“Of course you are.” he nods, “But you’ll be even better for a couple of hours’ rest. We survived alone for twelve years, I’m sure we can manage a morning.”

She climbs the ladder and he follows, intending to tuck her in and make sure she stays put before leaving her to her rest, “Leave the yard,” she says, as she sits on the rough straw mattress and pulls off her boots, “And I will find you.”

“And I imagine that reunion would be unpleasant.” He suggests, and her frown is half-serious as she crawls into the bed.

“It would involve pain.” She agrees, “You scared me something terrible, Rum.”

He nods, the guilt almost too much to bear. Rumpelstiltskin is not thankful for much in his meagre life, but his lack of true regret is certainly something. He knew men in the army who had lost whole families, who had nothing left but the packs on their backs, and carried the guilt for that every day. Who had ruined their own lives, and were now cursed to live with that fact until the end of their days.

Rum will freely admit that fear for that was one of the many reasons he ran from battle when he did: he could not bear to lose his family, and have it be his fault. He could not live with that; the burden would surely crush him stone dead.

But his wife, the wife he loves without words and needs beyond reason, is tired and sad and scared, and all for his own thoughtlessness.

And that is guilt enough.

“I know, love, I know,” he murmurs, easing himself down on his bad leg to sit on the edge of the bed. He presses a kiss to her forehead as she sinks into the mattress, strokes her hair back, “And you’re strong enough to slay a dragon, even now, but it doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“Tell Bae he’s washing up tonight. Every night until I say so.” she says, her face a war between amusement and genuine sternness.

“Oh?” he smiles, one eyebrow raised, “You’re getting good at being parental, my Belle,” he teases, “Bae won’t know what to think.”

“Yes, well,” she waves a hand dismissively, “He shouldn’t run out after his idiot father without leaving a note, should he? Someone needs to teach that boy some sense.” She says the last with the most fond, affectionate grin he’s ever seen, and Rum’s heart warms despite her words.

“Aye,” he agrees, “Someone does.” He sighs, looks at her, affecting a scared expression - and that he has to try, put it on, that the fear isn’t lurking and waiting despite everything says so much. Perhaps the songs are true: perhaps love does make cowards brave. “And what of my punishment? How do you intend to exact your revenge on your idiot of a husband?”

She smirks at him, and he can’t help but lean down and kiss the little smile from her lips. “Hmm,” she murmurs, “I’ll think of something.”

She kisses him again, and they waste minutes sat in that attic, him sat uncomfortably on the side of the bed and Belle curled beneath the rough blankets, just kissing and smiling.

They have hardly the time or the space to be able to indulge in such activities, but Rum thinks that perhaps that is part of the point: what is the reason for wishing for peace and stability, family and love, if he cannot sit with his wife and kiss her in the morning? If he cannot make the ones he loves happy in these smallest of ways, then what to the bigger expressions matter at all?

\---

“Is everything okay, papa?” Bae asks, quietly, as Rumpelstiltskin reappears through the house door and comes to join him by the wheel.

The day is warmer, now, spring truly blossoming even in their cold, dirty part of the world. Bae likes the village in spring, if only because there is less mud to seep into his boots and make his feet wet and cold. If there’re two things in the world Bae hates to be, it’s wet and cold.

Papa sets to spinning with barely a word, a muttered, “Of course, son,” and nothing more.

Bae understands: papa has been more forthcoming already today than he ever normally is, and there are some answers sons should not hear from their fathers. There is something dreadful happening, of this Bae is certain. The world is about to change.

Bae’s world has never before changed, not once, not really. Mama was gone before he could truly remember her, and all there is in his mind when he thinks of her is a flash of auburn hair, a pair of warm and capable hands and the smell of bread flour.

Mama left and Papa was there. And now Belle is here too.

But all the while, Bae has lived his life quietly in this village on the edge of a war, and while people come and go (and go, and go, and never come back) Bae and Rumpelstiltskin live here. They always have: Bae had assumed that they probably always would.

But he can feel it, now, beneath his feet. It started when Belle arrived all those weeks ago, rail-thin and dirty on their front step. When the soldiers came and Papa lied to them. When Bae gained a stepmother and a knight came to the village and stayed. Little changes, so little that alone they seem coincidence, but Bae lines them up and sees a pattern emerging. A change is going to come.

The earth is shifting underneath them, and Bae cannot tell where it will take them, or if they’ll still be standing when it stops.

He doesn’t want or need his papa to confirm it: that would just make it real.

“Is Belle okay?” he asks, instead, after they have spun in silence for long minutes, watching the sun rise higher in the sky and the wheel turn, each in their own head.

Rumpelstiltskin glances across at him, “She will be, in time.”

“She’s not-” Bae swallows, hard, “She’s not still angry with us, is she?”

Rumpelstiltskin chuckles, and while it’s a small and somewhat weak little sound, there is some genuine warmth to it as well, “No, I don’t think so. Well, not with you, at any rate. Wives can remain angrier far longer than mothers.”

Bae nods, and looks away before he can remark upon what was just said. He hasn’t heard anyone refer to Belle as his mother before, not truly, not outside of his own head.

But he’d like her to be, if she’d like that too. He feels safer with her here than he did ever before: she makes sure papa doesn’t become too sad, too desperate, too tired. She makes sure he doesn’t work too much, doesn’t go for days with little food to save more for Bae. She makes sure he speaks: Bae’s silent and scared papa has begun to talk of monsters and kings and plans in the open, as a hero might.

Bae doesn’t want to think of his papa as a hero. Such thoughts bring with them too much hopeful pride, and Bae knows better than to feel such things. The disappointment, the lack of hope, which would surely follow isn’t worth the risk.

Still, despite what the village and their children have told him and each other, he’s known all along that Rumpelstiltskin could be someone else, someone more than he appears. Bae knows, even if no one else will say or even see it, that his father is strong and kind and clever, beneath his coward’s mantle, beneath the fear.

Belle makes that come out: Belle makes Bae proud of his father.

If a change has to come, then Bae will fight through the fear that comes from the very idea, because it has to be better than what they have now. His papa walks and talks like a man again, an ordinary man, not the bent and lame creature Bae had watched him become.

“What’re we going to do?” he asks, after what might well have been hours.

“About what, Bae?” Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t look up from the spinning, and Bae feels his papa must already know the answer, and simply hopes to be wrong.

“About what the knight said? About the Dark One?”

Rumpelstiltskin sighs, runs a hand through his hair, “I don’t know, Bae.”

But Baelfire knows his father, and he can spot a lie when it is thrown in his face and called a truth, “Yes, you do. That’s what you and Belle were talking about after you sent me away. You have an idea and I deserve to know about it.”

“Bae-” He has that expression, that pacifying, hidden look, and Bae is suddenly more angry with his papa than he has been in a long time.

“No! Don’t act as if it’s all okay!” he stands up, “Papa, something bad is going to happen, and you know that, so you have to tell me!”

“Bae, sit back down and lower your voice, lad.” He was still speaking softly, calmingly, and Bae does as he’s bidden more out of habit than anything else.

“Belle is upset, and so are you. I need to know what’s going to happen.” Rumpelstiltskin still looks wavering, unsure, but Bae persisted, “Please?”

Rum sighs, looks down at his hands, “She needs to go back.”

That makes Bae stop cold: it feels like even his heart has stopped beating, “Back? Where?”

“Home, Bae. To the castle. Her father- well, you know. She wants to go back, and she won’t take no for an answer.”

“So what’re we going to do?”

Rum sighs, “We’re going to the castle, Bae.” He says, finally, and Bae suddenly wishes his papa would look at the wheel, anything but that terrified resignation in his eyes. Bae feels he is looking into the utter depths of fear, and he can barely move for it.

“The castle?” Bae swallows, hard, “All of us?”

Rumpelstiltskin gives him a look that is half-stern, “Would you let her go alone?”

“Of course not!” Bae says immediately, and there is something like approval in his father’s eyes.

“We are to travel as merchant traders,” Rum continues, in that same oddly calm voice, as if he is too scared even to shake or tremble, “Hide her face to get inside.”

“What about the knight?” Bae asks, quickly, the first of a thousand possible dangers springing to mind. He did not wish to admit it, even to his father, but Sir Gaston had spooked him. The idea of travelling all the way to the Ducal Palace with such a man did not appeal.

“He is not to know,” Rumpelstiltskin says, immediately, “I mean, Belle and I didn’t discuss it, she’s worn out. We gave her quite the scare this morning, son.”

Bae nods, “But he can’t know. I don’t-”

“I know,” Rum cracks a lopsided kind of smile, and Bae feels a sense of camraderie, of almost equality, that he hasn’t often before with his father, “He scares me too, Bae. There’s something not quite right.”

“He’s a knight,” Bae shrugs, feeling a certain sense of adulthood at this shared fear, “I suppose we’re not to feel right with him.”

“I suppose not.” Rumpelstiltskin agrees, “But we’ll leave in three days, so I’d be getting ready to pack up soon.”

There’s a heaviness to the silence that follows, and they go back to their spinning without another word.

The words are not spoken, but rather hang in the air: a change is going to come, and they might never return from it.

Neither of them need to say that there is no guarantee any of them will come home.


	12. Chapter 12

On their last day in their home, Belle awakens to the sound of her family cooking downstairs. She is pleasantly drowsy as she pulls her boots back on and climbs down to the main room. She has a husband and a son waiting for her. That’s enough to ward off the twisting unease in her gut, and for a few minutes more she can forget that they’ll ever have to leave.

The conversation over breakfast is kept deliberately light, not touching on their immanent journey, on the scare of the morning nor the emotion shared. Nothing is said of anything more than the wool they have to sell at market, and the gossip Morraine passed on to Bae while they played together a few days before.

Johan, the baker’s boy, is back from the war and hoping to marry the smith’s third daughter; there are rumours about the grocer’s widow and her sister’s sudden good fortunes, and the black market.

Nothing Belle cares about, and from the look on Bae’s face as he relates the news, and on Rumpelstiltskin’s as he hears it, she is not alone in this opinion. But it’s better than silence, and they’re all too exhausted, deep down, to discuss for another moment the dangers they face, the changes they must make, and so soon.

Bae disappears to Morraine’s soon after lunch, and Belle cannot blame him: his father can work without him, and if they are soon to leave he may never see his little sweetheart again.

Belle wonders if Bae even knows that that is what he and Morraine are, that were they to remain she would likely be attending their wedding in a few years, the war permitting.

Of course, she thinks, it’s likely they would both be drafted, and at least one of them taken or killed by the monsters they face. Or, she thinks, darkly, the soldiers they serve: Belle has heard every story there is of the behaviour of the officers, the trained fighters, when presented with young girls as subordinates.

Her own trails may have come at the hands of ogres, but Belle does not imagine that men, in their dark hours, are any less vicious.

She has this thought, glancing out of the window and catching sight of the children playing, and wonders. Her husband is in her line of sight, and he smiles when their eyes catch, when he looks up from his wheel and sees her looking.

If he is a man the world calls coward, then she wishes never again to meet a brave man. Rumpelstiltskin is small, sometimes, and lame, and he shakes when he fears. He is not one to duel nor to shout. But he is a good man, a kind man: he is a man who does not lie, nor does he cheat, and he holds close and dearly loves those people who come close enough to touch his soft, sweet heart.

She loves him. And the thought contains no fear, no doubt or worry, not anymore. What else could she call the warmth, the sweet, slow comfort that spreads through her at seeing him spinning as he does, calm and concentrated, and yet still ready to glance up and smile?

If this is love, this slow and quiet, subtle thing, then Belle was lied to most of her life. Love to her had always been brash, bold, heroes in stories slaying dragons for their princess’ hand.

But then, her husband is no hero, and Belle will never again be a princess. Rumpelstiltskin will never slay for her a dragon, nor vanquish all fear, but there is something warm and soft and clean in the knowledge that, were it necessary, he would hold her hand and they would attempt such feats together.

And it is this thought, this one all-sustaining feeling, that allows her to put what little they own of value, what little they can take with them by hand, into leather sacks, one for each of them to carry. Clothes and small amounts of food, Bae’s football and Rumpelstiltskin’s portable spinner’s supplies, the little things that will keep them occupied, and prove their trade.

Running does not seem so terrible, not quite at least, if she is to do so with her husband and her son by her side. If she is to do so with all the love she’s ever known surrounding her.

She brings herself up short, folding the last of Bae’s shirts and staring at her hands for lack of better focus. She was loved before, she knows that. She was loved before she met Rumpelstiltskin and his son. And yet this is the first time, it seems, she has not felt in the least bit lonely.

But then, her friends stopped writing when she stopped being allowed to send replies, and her papa has a bounty on her head, and Gaston…

Gaston cannot be allowed to see her. This much she knows.

She cannot let her once-fiancé, her childhood friend, close to her family. For Gaston must still expect a princess in her, must still expect her the way she once was. With a whole heart and a brave smile, the smile she wore every day until the sun was blocked and her arms bound in chains.

She is no longer the Princess of the Frontlands, daughter of the Duke, just as she is no longer the bought and owned pet of an ogre prince. She left those women behind a long time ago: she left them at the door to this very home.

She is Rose, wife of Rumpelstiltskin the Spinner, and that is enough.

Their last night in the house is silent, and dark, and a little sad. They won’t leave in a blaze of glory, burning bridges and setting the sky alight. They will slip out in the stillness of early morning. They will vanish without a trace.

And none of them have to say that no one will miss them.

Morraine cried, from what Rumpelstiltskin tells her quietly, in the dark of their bed, when his arms wrap around her and she asks him once, just once, if he’s sure.

Bae is willing to do whatever is needed; Bae is a good and brave boy, so much better than his poor papa or his new mama. Bae would slay a dragon: Belle just hopes that something will happen to ensure that he’ll never have to.

Morraine cried, and Bae hugged her, and Rumpelstiltskin sounds almost smiling when he says that he thinks Bae even managed to kiss her forehead.

It was not true love’s kiss: everyone knows that such things are the stuff of legends and children’s stories only. But Belle is still a little choked up, her throat tight and eyes wet, at the thought of it.

Rumpelstiltskin pulls her around and presses his lips to the little places on her cheeks where the tears fall. His kiss, when it reaches her mouth, is soft and gentle, undemanding. They have had over a month, now, to practice, and they kiss slowly, her arms around his neck and his hands so gently, so tenderly and timidly at her waist that she could cry all the harder for it.

He holds her close, her head pillowed on his chest, all through the night. She doubts either of them sleep much, but it is still welcome, to be allowed these few dark hours to listen to the heartbeat of the man she loves, and his slow and steady breathing, and feel that perhaps his arms will never move from about her: perhaps the world will leave them be.

But the first rays of sunlight seep in all too soon, and Belle awakens slowly from her doze as she feels Rumpelstiltskin do the same.

They rise together, quickly and quietly, and neither parent can blame Bae for being a little surly with sleepiness as they take their supplies, pass between them the sacks of their few belongings, and slip out of the back door.

Belle has seen much in her twenty-five years, and she thinks probably far more than a woman her age should have had to see, much less act upon, much less run from. But she still feels that the saddest moment of her life is the last glimpse over her shoulder they walk onto the forest road, and she sees the house disappear behind the trees.

She has no illusions: it is likely, perhaps even certain, that they will never again return to this village. It occurs to her that she still has no idea even if the village had a name: it has always just been Rumpelstiltskin’s home.

And then hers.

Belle feels that the little house, with its tiny back yard and vegetable patch, the cosy, cramped loft and little holes in which to hide, had become as much a home to her as any castle she had ever once lived in. That is the house in which she found a family, a husband and son she could love and care for. She had felt safe there for the first time since she was a young girl, and it is difficult, even with the steady rhythm of Rumpelstiltskin’s staff beside her, and Bae’s grumbling murmurs close behind, to take each step into the darkness of the woods.

But step she does, again and again and again, until they hit the road to Longbourne. The walk will take all of the day, but there is a cart and horse waiting in the town: Rumpelstiltskin had gathered his courage a few days previously and sought out Gaston, explained the basics of their plan and asked for a little asisstance.

Belle is touched that her old friend seems so willing to help them, even if she doesn’t trust it yet. Bae alone will take the cart, and only once they are certain he was not followed will Rumpelstiltskin and Belle rejoin him.

They walk in silence for most of the day, lost in thought, dozing on their feet. Belle is lost in the rhythm of footfalls and her husband’s steadily thumping staff on the hard earth, and she is so used to running that the walk barely registers, tired and numbed as she is.

They reach the town as the sun is setting, and Rumpelstiltskin finds an inn on the outskirts, one too poor and too far from the centre to attract soldiers and their kind.

Belle knows that this is the sort of place frequented by cuthroats and thieves, people will ill intent and crafty knives. But they are too poor to be worth robbing, and she has her kitchen knife in her boot: they are caused no trouble, invisible peasants in a dingy tavern, and the innkeeper barely bats an eye as they secure rooms for the night.

Bae sleeps with the servants: he gets a bed, this way, and can leave earlier than his parents the next morning, and there is less chance of someone remembering that they travel as a party.

Rumpelstiltksin frets: he is unhappy to be parted from his boy, and Belle is less than comfortable. But Bae himself has her smaller knife on him, and is nondescript and small enough not to attract attention. Everything they do is designed to blend, to not cause a stir, to be forgotten. If they appear poor and useless and harmless, then they will not be noticed.

“You wish to stay with him, don’t you?” Belle asks, gently, when she and Rumpelstiltskin are sat together in the bed in their room, and she can see him fretting, the little crease forming between his brows.

“He’s… he’s just a child, Belle.” Rumpelstiltskin says, softly, “He’s too young.”

“No, he’s not.” Belle shakes her head, smiling too, “And he’d have to grow far faster had we stayed at home, were he within soldiers’ grasp. If we’re lucky, they’ll never find him. This can only help.”

“I know.” Rum nods, shakily, sighing and settling back among his pillows, “I know.”

“Please try not to worry, Rum,” she pleads, settling against him with her head on his shoulder, her hand splayed on his chest, “Please. We need sleep, tonight, if we are to be watchful tomorrow.”

She presses a soft, soothing kiss to his jaw, and another to his throat, quiet and sweet little kisses along his neck and up to his lips. She is surprised by his ardor when he claims her mouth with his, kissing her with an urgency that would have been alarming, mere weeks ago. Now she returns his energy, his near-desperation, as his hand comes to cup her cheek and she strokes his hair softly, as if calming some frightened animal.

His kisses are heady, sending her mind to a warmer place, a sweeter place, and for just minutes she can feel his heartbeat and feel the softness of his lips slanting over hers, and believe that nothing more or less in the world could exist.

She feels so unsafe here, far from home and lost, and with him preoccupied with kissing her, with him not in need of words of strength and comfort, she can feel it a little. She is desperately frightened, and she clings to him as his body blankets hers, as both of them shake and their kisses slip and deepen, messy and urgent things, passion born of shared fear and shared distraction.

*His hand slides slowly down, flat over her ribs, tracing over her breast, and he strokes her softly through her coarse shirt, and she wonders if he is as desperate as she, need and fear and heat making him bolder, making him able to touch her where before he would have quivered and stopped.

She is glad of it: his touch holds no fear now, no trepidation, not for her. She loves him, and she has touched him in return, has she not? She trusts no one more than Rumpelstiltskin, never before and, she is certain, never again.

She gasps when his hand slips, and suddenly the rough fabric rubs against her nipple and something hot and sweet races through her, just for an instant. “Belle?” he stops immediately, hands back framing her face, worried eyes soft and dark.

“That was the nice kind of gasp,” she bites her lip, fear and exhaustion and adrenaline making her giddy, smiling. When the world is this terrifying, Belle is coming to find her only course of action in smiling at her husband and laughing at their efforts in the marriage bed.

They are helpless, and a little inept, and they have only tried this once, really. But their kisses became better, sweeter, more expert and pleasurable with time and practice and familiarity. There is no reason to believe that this, too, may not one day become easy and well-known and lose its mystery, its difficulty.

“Oh.” He nods, and then, after a moment of staring at one another, neither of them moving, he lets out a reluctant little chuckle.

She is startled by his laughter, and it spurs her own, and soon they are laughing together, unable to stop.

“You’re beautiful when you laugh,” he tells her, sincerely, when he sighs and his chuckles recede, and her breath catches. She doesn’t think he’s ever spoken so boldly, nor so sweetly, before.

“Thank you.” She says, blushing like a girl, and he presses a soft kiss to her lips, nothing more than a tender gesture, nothing more than that.

He is waiting for her permission: he is waiting for her reciprocation, to know that this is okay.

She needs him close, and that’s all she knows. More than sleep or food or a happy ending, she needs him close to her. Heartbeat to heartbeat, breathing and holding together. She needs him as close as he can be, and that’s enough reason for her to be brave.

She slides a hand down between them, and runs it over the same place on his chest that so excited her when he did the same. She rubs a little harder, just a little, and he stiffens slightly, a little noise escaping him. “Belle?”

“You’re beautiful too, you know,” she says, as she repeats the motion, and he shakes a little, kissing her temple and her jaw feverishly, and she sighs, her hand coming to hold his head where it was. Her heart is pounding, but there is so much worse to fear than her husband’s touch, and so much to be gained from conquering the panic even now threatening to rise. “My husband.”

Her hand slips down further, and beneath his shirt. She has not the courage, even now, to go beneath his coarse trousers, but the flat of her hand on his belly appears enough proof for him.

Slowly, almost reverently, his hand returns its motion on her breast with more focus, little slides against her nipple that send bursts of unfamiliar pleasure through her, that make her ache just a little for him to touch her more. It is a strange feeling, this craving to be touched, a feeling Belle had assumed she’d never know, but it was as if he pulled her to him with little strings and ribbons, and she only wants closer, warmer, more of him and everywhere.

She pulls on his shirt, and he helps her a little bemusedly to pull it over his head. She has never seen her husband disrobed, always averts her eyes as he dresses, and he pays her the same courtesy. He is slim, skinny even, and wiry, with sparse hair across his chest and a lean, almost hollowed stomach. She feels a little guilty: she should make him eat more, not allow him to work and go without food for Bae’s sake.

He looks at her pointedly, embarrassment all over his face, and she smiles as appreciatively as she knows how. “See?” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his chest, beneath his collarbone, “Beautiful.”

He swallows, his eyes closing, and she is a little bit proud of how she can do this to him, how she can make him shake with something other than fear, something strong and good and right. Something close to love, even if he won’t ever love her. She loves him, and she loves Bae, but she does not deserve it in return.

It is divine benevolence enough to allow her to love, to care, to heal just a little in the arms of her husband, with the smiles of her son. To be loved in return would be too much: she has caused too much bloodshed for that to be right.

But he cares for her, trusts her, desires her in his shy, sweet way. And that is more than she ever could have hoped for.

Her fingers curl now in the hem of her own shirt, and she swallows hard, shaking a little, but strangely unafraid. She pulls the shirt over her head in one motion, and wriggles out of it as fast as she can, covering her eyes by accident in the process.

When she looks up, Rum’s eyes are fixed on her chest. They dart guiltily back to hers the moment she catches him staring, and she knows her blush covers her whole face, her neck, and lower. “Beautiful.” He repeats, softly, reverently, his hand stroking so lightly as to be almost ticklish over her bare skin.

They’re both trembling, and some small and shameless part of Belle wishes they were calmer, more confident, wishes she could explore her husband a little better, know his reactions and allow him to know hers. But there is no time for that, never time, and all she wants is close and warm and him all around her, and no time for anything else.

So she smiles, kisses him lightly, pulling at his lips as she drops away, and wriggles quickly at her trousers. He does the same with his own, catching the hint, and soon they are bare and pressed together, and breathing hard from quickness and struggles of fabric.

Only then does it occur that they are flush together, skin to skin, bare and warmer than she’s ever been, and so close she is almost close enough, almost, but not quite, not quite yet.

“Belle-“ he starts, but she makes a small shushing sound, and leans up, kisses him quiet. Words will break the spell; words will make her scared and small; words will make this about more than warmth and closeness and safety. Words will force confessions from her lips, and she cannot stand to tell him she loves him, not here and now, not when he can’t say it back.

“Have me, husband.” She whispers, “Please.”

He groans, low and deep and disbelieving, and she parts her legs a little to allow him to line them up, and in this moment, this last moment, she is frightened. Of ruin and violation and allowing anyone, even her beloved husband, so close.

But then her eyes meet his, and he is as scared and stunned and enraptured as she, and it’s enough. They kiss softly, slowly as he pushes gently inside, and she makes a soft whimper as she feels him go deeper than before, sheathed in her. They are so close, finally, close enough that he won’t be taken from her, close enough that she’s not ever alone.

He pulls out a little way, and then thrusts back in again, and she rocks her hips to meet him, to show she wants this too. His hand comes to cup her breast as they find a slow, deep, gentle rhythm, and he rubs her nipple clumsily in time with his thrusts. The pleasure is different, this time, augmented by her need for closeness, by holding him tightly, fearless in this moment.

But it isn’t enough, and somehow Belle feels it should be, feels something is missing. There is little space between their bodies, but she instinctively snakes one hand down what space there is, to find the place above where they are joined, where he stroked her last time, readied her.

Her own touch there, now, is something else altogether, and she is swept along by it, unable to control even her own mind as she rubs and rubs, as Rumpelstiltskin speeds up a little and she is moaning, little wanton sounds she smothers in kissing any inch of him she can find, desperate for sensation, for him, always for him.

She can feel something building, something glorious and deep and hot, ready to coil and burst inside her, and she raises her legs a little around his, trying to pull him deeper, trying to get him closer. His hand is still on her breast, squeezing lightly, brushing the sensitive little bud over and over until it’s all too much, his hand and hers, him inside her and her around him and his kisses buried in her hair. It’s all too much and, with a little cry, she breaks.

She rocks helplessly as the pleasure buffets her in waves, and she is mindless to it, following it as he holds her, as he groans and shunts a little harder, still gentle but jerkier, less restrained. She feels the moment he breaks, the moment he spasms and they clutch each other until he collapses beside her.

They’re both breathing, hard, and as he slips from her Belle is crying and she has no idea why. He stares at her, blearily, and gathers her against his chest with one arm, wordlessly soothing with a hand on her tangled curls behind her head.

She loves him. She loves him and she feels like flying and falling and dying here with him and she can’t understand, the world too big and too bright to understand. She wants this to be it, this room and her love and a bed, and closeness, warmth, safety. He holds her while she cries, and she eventually finds a happy smile for him, a warm and genuine smile, as he kisses her softly, and she settles against his chest.*

“Are you alright, Belle?” he asks, when he seems to feel it safe to do so.

“Yes,” she breathes, pulling the blankets to cover them, running a hand over his chest in absent circles, “Right now, I’m perfect.”


	13. Chapter 13

Rumpelstiltskin wishes, oh how he wishes, that he had been the one to volunteer to go alone, and that Bae could have stayed with Belle.

Someone has to go to collect their cart and horses, and splitting up is safer than travelling together. But logic does little to soothe Rumpelstiltskin’s mind.

His boy is gone before them, nowhere to be seen as Rum uses what small money he has to settle the bill with the innkeeper. Belle’s hand is clasped tightly in his, warm and reassuring, but his boy is out playing bait for soldiers and there is no way in the world that he could relax right now, or feel at peace with this plan.

If Bae is captured, taken away, then Rumpelstiltskin cannot honestly say what will become of him.

They walk briskly through the woods, the spinner and his wife with their belongings clutched between them, until they reach the point in the road where Bae agreed to meet them. He is not there when they arrive, but Belle assures him that it is simply the boy’s inexperience with carts and horses, nothing more than that, that keeps him.

They wait for five minutes, and then ten, and then twenty. Bae is nowhere to be seen.

Belle’s assurances sound weak and false after an hour, and cease altogether after another thirty minutes have passed, and the road remains clear.

“He was caught,” Rumpelstiltskin whispers, dread and death and terror caught in his throat and choking him. “Oh, gods, my boy…”

“We’ll head back to town,” Belle says, and only he would notice the little tremor in her voice, the terror beneath the calm. “We’ll see what’s holding him up, it’ll all be alright.”

“Town, yes,” Rumpelstiltskin nods, following with his hand wrapped tightly in his wife’s as they wend their way back through the trees and into the town, from muddy paths to cobbled streets, his eyes wide and staring, glancing madly at every corner, every new lane, looking for his son. “Where are we going?”

“The stables who were selling us the cart and horse,” she says, tightly, “Perhaps they simply did not have the things ready yet, and Bae was held up.”

“Perhaps,” he agrees, but the knot in his stomach is making him feel ill, his legs trembling and fingers clasped too tightly about his staff, anxiety and terror shredding every muscle and nerve in his body.

Belle throws them around a wall when they reach the tables, before he can ask her why. “Shh!”

“What is it?” he whispers, “Belle, what did you see?”

“They…” she swallows, hard, as if she may vomit, “They have him. The soldiers, they’ve… manacles,” she pushes on, but he can hear the strain in her voice, “Oh, gods…”

“Bae?” he asks, dizzy and nauseous with the fear of it, the reality crashing around him like the world at its end, “They have Bae?”

“Yes.” She nods, “I’m so, so sorry Rum-“ she breaks off when his hand tears from hers, and he’s walking toward the stables before he can stop himself, before the terror can truly consume him.

His boy is clapped in irons, a soldier stood beside him. “Papa!” he cries, before their leader steps forward, blocking Rumpelstiltskin’s view.

“Bae!” he shouts back, but the man before him does not move, and Bae is still captive, still unable to reach him.

“You’re the boy’s father?” the man asks, gruffly, and Rumpelstiltskin nods, shakily.

“I am.”

They’ve found them out, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, blind panic sending his pulse racing and stars bursting behind his eyes, his legs - even the lame one, that aches even now - ready to run and run, to never stop. The soldiers know they’ve hidden a fugitive, know they’re breaking all the laws of the land, and now they’ve signed their own death sentences.

Bae’s eyes are burned behind Rumpelstiltskin’s own: wide eyed with terror, with relief at his papa’s return and horror at the irons around his wrists. His boy, his poor poor boy…

“And you helped his escape from the army?” the man barks, and Rumpelstiltskin jumps out of his skin, near enough.

But then the words register, and a little, tiny, blinding spark of hope enters the clouds of terror fogging his mind. Belle’s name was not mentioned, nor any of their actual crimes. He shakes all over, unsure if he actually understands what is happening here, if he can even think straight enough to know.

“N-no,” he shakes his head, his eyes pleading, his whole stance as submissive as he can make it, “No, my Baelfire’s only thirteen,” he begs, “He looks older, I know, sir, but we’re just passing through… selling wool in Longbourne, sir, and my boy’s only a child.”

He keeps talking, stammering, as long as he can, hoping that one of the many lies will stick, because his Baelfire, in truth, cannot be the boy they seek. His papa is the deserter in the family, after all, and he has long since paid for that cowardice. Bae is under the conscription age, still.

“Baelfire?” the man frowns, glances back at the soldiers that hold Bae captive, at the straining boy who is nodding furiously, “Is that your name, boy?”

“Yes!” Bae nods, “Yes, sir, I’m Baelfire, the son of Rumpelstiltskin the spinner, and I’m thirteen years old.”

The man looks at him, hard, glances from father to son and then down at a piece of paper in his hands, one that looks similar to the posters sent out to capture Belle. “You have papers, spinner?” he asks, and Rumpelstiltskin nods desperately, retrieving from within the folds of his tunic the muddied scrap of paper the guard station gave him, when he informed them of their leaving the village for a few days, ostensibly to come here for market day.

The guard scans the paper for a few moments, and Rumpelstiltskin wishes that he could read what it says for himself.

“Release him,” the guard orders, at last, “He’s not the boy we’re looking for.”

The manacles are released with a harsh clapping noise, and Bae bolts across the stable yard and into his father’s arms. Rumpelstiltskin almost drops his staff in his haste to hold the boy close, as close as can be, his tears falling unabashedly into his son’s hair. He’d thought him lost for certain, thought him taken where he could never follow.

“We seek Radek, the son of Johan, a baker in this town,” the guard says, shortly, “I apologise, goodman Rumpelstiltskin, for the confusion.”

“It…” Rumpelstiltskin swallows, his arms never leaving Bae for a moment, needing the reassurance of touch to remember that he’s alive and safe, “It’s no matter, sir.”

“You must understand,” the guard continues, hands spread wide, “It is a rarity to see a boy of thirteen travelling. Most are already training for their war duties.”

“I have none but my boy and my wife,” Rumpelstiltskin says, his voice weak and shaky with fright, but trying to sound stronger than he feels, to say what Belle would say, “And we’re not well off, and my wife is unwell. My son helps me when he’s not…” he swallows hard, the word itself bile in his mouth, the idea of Bae wielding a weapon, learning to fight and die, enough to make him sick, “training.”

“I understand,” the soldier nods, “Good to make sure the lad is ready, it’s getting nasty out there.”

“So I’ve heard,” Rumpelstiltskin says, weakly. “We’d best be on our way,” he takes Bae’s arm firmly, “or we’ll miss a day at market.”

“Of course,” the soldier waves them on, “Good fortune to you, spinner.”

“Good fortune to you,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, and hobbles as fast as he can with Bae beside him back into the streets, to where Belle waits for them.

She is a heap on the floor when they find her, shaking, her face buried in her slim, trembling hands. “Belle?” Bae crouches down, and Belle lifts her head out of her hands to look at him, the smile on her face when she registers that their boy is free and safe beatific and disbelieving all at once.

“Bae?” she sniffs, wipes her tear-stained face with the back of her hand, “Oh, gods, I thought I’d lost you both!” she pulls him into as tight a hug as Rumpelstiltskin had, and Bae lets out a choked little laugh as he hauls her to her feet, to include his father in their embrace as well. They all cling tight for a long minute, holding close, not wanting to ever let go or be parted again.

That was too close for comfort, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, far, far too close. Next time the soldiers will not be simply mistaken: next time they will be captured, and there will be no happy, tearful reunion.

The soldiers are, thankfully, gone when they return to the stables, and there are no more problems gathering the cart and horse, and going on their way. With Belle’s hooded cloak obscuring her face, and the local soldiers already acquainted, now, with Rum and Bae, there is no more need to travel apart and in secret: they ride together out of town, Rum at the front with the horses, Belle and Bae with their wares in the cart at the back.

Rum glances back every five minutes to check on his family. And every glance back, he promises will be his last, he promises he will trust the sounds of their voices, the knowledge that he would hear if anything were to move them from the cart. But with every minute that passes without seeing them with his own eyes, the anxiety in his gut grows, until finally, finally he has to check again.

Belle finally settles to doze with her head resting against his tailbone, and Bae comes to sit beside him on the front bench: only then, with the touch of both wife and son as constant reassurance, can Rumpelstiltskin finally focus on the road.

—

After their first night in Longbourne, there is no need to stop at another inn. The two more nights they are on the road, Belle sleeps through the day in the cart, and keeps watch at night, reading the one book she owns while Rum and Bae sleep beneath the cart, off the road and with a tarpaulin beneath them to protect them from the rough dirt, twigs and stones of the forest floor.

Sleep is not easy to find, though, Bae realises, and he knows that his papa has an equally difficult time of it. They lie side by side, shoulder to shoulder under the cart, both with their eyes closed, both wide awake. Bae knows Rum feigns sleep to set him at ease, but his breathing is irregular, every muscle tight as the thread on a spinning wheel, and he is much the same.

He can understand - he never did before, but now he does - why his papa is always so afraid. The few times he does snatch a few hours of exhausted sleep, his dreams are filled with the sensation of irons tight around his wrists, and the shouts of soldiers as he is dragged away.

Bae has nightmares that his father did not save him in time. That he was hauled off into the war, forced to train and fight the same monsters who so hurt Belle before she came to them.

When he wakes, with a start, he is dizzy with relief to find himself beside his father, with Belle visible outside the cart. Where once there might have been resentment for the loss of a chance to fight with the other boys, to be brave and strong, now he has only relief. Because Belle was afraid for him, Belle cried, and Belle is the bravest person Bae has ever met. Belle killed an ogre prince single-handedly, and escaped their castle in rags. Belle ran miles and miles in bare feet, without food or rest, and was near dead by the time she found sanctuary in their home.

Belle is braver than any boy on a battlefield, and she didn’t want him taken to war. She did not push him on, spur him for honour and glory in battle as the soldiers promised. And who’s judgement could Bae trust more than the woman who has seen into the war’s very heart, the woman whose own father gives the call to arms?

Bae is truly, deeply afraid for the first time in his life, and so he does not protest, as once he might have, when his papa - finally, finally falling into sleep the second night - rolls over and wraps a tight arm about his chest.

It is more comforting than any words, and more welcome than it ever has been before, to know that his papa is there, that he won’t let go.

The third day, Belle is fast asleep in the cart as the forest starts to thin. They are nearing a settlement, the ducal city if their crudely drawn map from Sir Gaston is correct, and Bae’s tired limbs are filled with new energy, fresh excitement. No matter the circumstances, the fear, the dangers, until this journey Longbourne was as far from home as Bae had ever gone. None of his friends nor their relatives had ever, ever made it to the ducal city.

Bae leans back as they near the edge of the forest, to shake Belle awake, “Belle, we’re here, wake up!”

Belle snatches Bae’s hand as he shakes her with a grip that is tighter even than the manacles the soldiers clapped him in. She pulls, hard enough to send him sprawling into the cart, and bolts upright, his arm held high in her vice-like grip as Rum hauls the cart to a startled stop.

She blinks awake and looks down at Bae with eyes that are, for a moment, entirely wide and unseeing, not recognising her adoptive son or the world around her, nothing at all.

Then she gives a little cry, wakefulness alerting her to what she’s just done, and releases his wrist as fast as she’d grabbed it. She gently - so gently, softly, as if he might recoil or run from her - gathers him into her arms, whispers apologies as she holds him close.

“I’m sorry, Bae, I didn’t realise.”

“Instinct,” Rum says, a little gruffly, “can’t be helped.”

She nods at him, Bae can feel it on his shoulder, and she parts from him with a shaky smile, “Are you alright, Bae?”

“Fine,” he assures her, “You just surprised me, is all. I’m good.”

“Good,” she strokes his hair and his arms, as if checking for damage and soothing wounds, motherly although her smile still unstable and trembling, “Good… gods, I’m just… I was dreaming. I’m sorry, Bae.”

“I’m fine, Belle,” he says, as Rum starts the cart again, and Bae is the one hugging her this time, “Papa says I shouldn’t startle you, and he was right, I should’ve listened.”

She rubs his back, and he clutches a little closer, childlike for just a moment in his mama’s arms before he breaks away.

“I’m sorry he’s right, Bae,” she says, softly, “But for a while longer, I think not sneaking up on me’s best. Even just to tell me we’ve arrived.”

“What… what were you dreaming about?” he asks, cautiously. The curiosity has been building up and eating him alive ever since she arrived, and he has yet to receive a real answer. Is it the ogre she killed that still haunts her? The running through the battlefields looking for shelter? Or something worse? Something that makes her terrified to be touched even gently, even in sleep?

“Just… fragments, I don’t remember,” she lies, and he can tell she’s lying, but she’s also suddenly so small and so defensive that he cannot push anymore. Belle’s a princess, and she’s braver than anyone, and if his not prying will help her to be who she is, then he’ll never say another word on the subject.

In truth, he’s glad of the excuse not to ask again. The curiosity wars with a distinct fear of ever knowing a single detail of what could have terrified her so deeply, what horrors the world contains that papa can’t or won’t tell him about.

“Okay, sorry,” he offers a smile as apology, and she responds with one of those bright, beaming smiles that are too wide for her still too-thin face. He wonders how warming the full effect must be, when she’s safe and truly happy, and has had enough to eat. Even now, even when they’re all dirty from the road, and she’s just woken from a nightmare, and she’s exhausted, the whole world feels warmer and brighter just for that smile.

He crawls back to sit by his papa, and leaves his mama sat in the back, gathering herself for when they’ll reach the inn where they’re to meet Sir Gaston.

He hopes, as he glances back at her briefly, that his papa won’t mind him referring to Belle as his mama. But it has become instinctive, a reflex as strong as the one that had had her snaring his arm like an enemy and pulling him to the ground before she knew what was happening. Her smiling makes him warm and safe, and her hugs, and her careful, patient hands on the places where he is bruised and hurting.

He wonders if it is disloyal, unfair to his first mama that he thinks of another with that title now. But he barely knew her, remembers only the smell of pipe smoke and stale beer from the tavern she frequented, and the sound of a sigh, and her carrying him of a night against her soft, rounded body, and passing him across to his papa’s slimmer, harder frame as she went someplace that Bae, for reasons never explained and never questioned, could not follow.

Papa had told him, nearly ten years ago now, that she had died, and he remembers that the sky was darker, the world colder, for a while after that. Papa walked smaller every day, and that is what truly marks it for Bae: the day mama left and didn’t come back was the day papa started to hunch over, and mile less, and work harder with fewer smiles. He’d been firm, warm, strong before, but weakness and the cold seeped in with every day after Bae’s mama’s death.

Then Belle arrived, and things started to be as they had been before, as they should always have been. Rumpelstiltskin is strong, and kind, and clever; Bae has always, always known that. He has always been proud of his papa, but it is the best thing in the world to see him show those things to everyone else as well.

He is afraid, yes, but so is Bae and so is Belle. He’s still here, though, pulling a cart with a wanted woman in it up to the city gates, doing the brave thing even though no one can tell if bravery will ever follow, and Belle made that happen. Belle gave Bae his papa back after so many years of living with a ghost, and if she doesn’t deserve to be called his mama than Bae doesn’t know who does.

They pass without hindrance through the gates and into the city: it’s the fifth day of the new month, market day in most of the land’s towns, and one more trader is of no interest to the few soldiers on watch. Sir Gaston had been right, they are invisible in the streets as their cart and horse head for the inn.

Bae takes in the city with awe: the last town in the whole of the Frontlands that is not war-torn or ravaged, the last place where music still plays and children still run in the streets. The buildings are sandstone, strong and tall in terraces along paved streets, and the soldiers on the street corners wear burnished armour, gleaming proudly in the sunlight. Everywhere are the banners with the Duke’s green and white crest, proclaiming the hoped-for victory in the war, and celebrating market day, as the more faded and tattered banners did back in Longbourne on such a day.

It was like the cities he’d imagined in the stories papa had told him as a child, and his wide eyes glanced from one new sight to another ravenously, unable to take in everything and desperate to try anyway.

He is so busy examining everything, the pavements to the flowers in window boxes, to the people with clean, soft hair and skin, merchants and professionals mixed among visiting peasants such as themselves, that he doesn’t notice the man running in front of the cart until Rum has drawn them to an abrupt halt. He holds on for dear life, hoping not to be thrown forward onto the backs of the horses, as the man runs up to the bench, next to Rumpelstiltskin, flushed and out of breath.

“Gaston?” Belle leans over the side, pulling her hood up further to hide her face, her scarf to cover her chin as she speaks, and his whole face lights up when he sees her.

“Oh, Belle,” he whispers, reverently, and Bae suddenly wants him gone more than he wants anything else in the world. Only papa can look at Bae’s mama like that, or say her name like that: to hear it from this strange, threatening knight, no matter how helpful he has been, is profoundly wrong. “You’re here.”

She shrugs, awkwardly, “For the market days, that’s all. And my name is Rose,” she reminds, sharply, “The wife of Rumpelstiltskin the spinner. I am here to see my father, and then I will be gone.”

“That’s why I came!” he says, hurriedly, “He’s failing fast, Belle. We can’t wait another day, you need to see him now!”

She glances to Rumpelstiltskin with such fear in her eyes, uncertain and seeking direction, and he nods, almost imperceptibly, “We’re here for that, and that alone, sweetheart,” he reminds, softly. He doesn’t mention the threat of the Dark One, and neither does Belle: Bae would rather not think on it, to tell the truth. The world is scary enough without demons as well. “Let Bae and I go to sell the wool, and let your knight slip you into the castle and out again today. We can be gone by sunrise tomorrow, back home?” his voice rises at the end, making it a question, and Bae realises that he’s afraid she’ll not want to go. That she might be back where she belongs, now, and not want to return to their peasant life after returning to such splendour.

But her eyes have lit with a wild, passionate hope. “Home,” she whispers, and nods, fiercely, “Yes, yes, I’d like that.”

“Good,” he nods, briefly, to Sir Gaston, “Bring her back to us. Understand?”

Gaston flashes a brief smile, and Bae doesn’t know why but it sends a shiver down his spine. Perhaps it’s because he has his hand in Belle’s, helping her from the cart, and no one should hold his mama’s hand but he and Rumpelstiltskin. “I’ll keep your wife alive, spinner, don’t you worry.”

“He’ll worry anyway,” Belle says, warmly, “as will I. For both of you,” she looks up at Bae first, and holds out her hand for him to hold for just a moment. “Take good care of him for me, Bae. Be brave and good, I want to hear all about your adventures at market when I get back,” her voice is choked and broken at the end, and she looks next to Rum, smiling just the same. “You too.”

“Be brave and good?” he asks, his voice as wavering as hers.

“If you like,” she shakes her head, and smiles, warmly and sadly all at once. “Just be safe, Rumpelstiltskin, and… keep an eye on my son.”

He nods, shakily, Bae thinks they both might even be crying, a little, as she leans up and Rum leans down, and they kiss in the space between, and look for a moment for all the world like they will never let go.

They break apart after a long moment, hands cupping each others’ faces, and she whispers something, something Bae does not catch. It that makes Rumpelstiltskin freeze all over, before nodding, and kissing her once again, deeper this time, and for longer.

Then he sits back up, and Belle has been whisked away with her hood and scarf covering her face into the crowd on the arm of the knight, vanishing into the busy city streets. Bae can only hope, and pray, but he can’t help but doubt in his soul, that this was not goodbye.


	14. Chapter 14

Gaston is smiling as he leads Belle through the crowd, and his hand on her arm is too firm, almost painful. She knows it’s only a reaction to the urgency of the situation, the severity of the dangers they face. He’s risking life and limb to sneak her into her own father’s castle, and all for a chance to say goodbye to a man on his deathbed.

Belle knows she will never be able to repay this kindness. To be caught would spell the end for them both, and yet still Gaston’s hand still half drags her through the swarming market day crowds of the city, toward the golden palace gates Belle remembers so well.

The last time she had walked these streets, they were cold, dark, and empty. Everyone was cowering in their beds, huddled with their children and afraid of their own shadow. The Ogre’s Council, come to make peace with the Duke and his men. She had been lead out of her home on the arm of the Prince, trying to hold on to the relief she’d felt when she’d discovered that he was not only the runt of his family, but that Ogre nobility was more human than the foot soldiers that had pillaged and burnt their villages. Trying to forget her fear, her sadness, and the tales of the Ogres’ notorious delight in causing pain.

He’d been capable of speech, of smiling, of kindness and cruelty. She’d been glad of it at the time.

She knows now that marriage to a howling beast would have been far better than how she had been bound to a monster capable of creativity and malice.

No compassion, though. None of that.

He’d lead her through the city in the ridiculous golden dress her father had picked out for her. She was all the duchy had left to offer, at that point, and they’d been desperate: it was the only gown she owned that still made her appear a princess. The only dress that marked her as higher than the serving girl who brought her her supper and cleaned her shoes.

The city had been dark and silent, but the Prince’s grip had been no more severe than Gaston’s is now. She is now thankful for her tattered peasant clothing, sturdy but entirely unremarkable, and for the scarf that covers her face. This time, she can show her terror, her eyes may dart and her lips tremble. Before she had to be proud and stoic, but the princess who was marched as a trophy through these streets began her death that very night. Now Belle is a peasant, and peasants from backwater villages, especially ones hauled along by grim-faced soldiers, are allowed to look as terrified as they like.

It’s a small comfort, though, and nothing to what Rumpelstiltskin could have offered with just his warm, strong fingers wrapped around hers, but it is something.

She holds his parting words in her mind as she walks, trying to focus on them, on the memory and the feeling and her fluttering stomach. On how to show her thanks upon her return. On how everything had seemed so difficult, so hopeless, and brightened at those words.

She’d thought that she’d love him until she died, and never have it returned, and she’d been contented with that. To love at all is a joy she’d never thought she’d be able to feel again, and she’d needed nothing more.

She’d thought that if she ever told him, it would be in a whisper on her deathbed, or a plea stood beside his. She’d thought it would be years, and then a futile gesture.

She’d not thought he’d lean down from their little cart, in the marketplace of the city she’d once called home, and kiss her without shame. She’d not thought he’d press his forehead to hers, and smile, and whisper that he loved her without a moment’s hesitation.

Even now, as they near the palace gates, a smile blooms across Belle’s face. He loves her. Her husband, her Rumpelstiltskin, wedded and bedded and in love with her. It’s more, so much more, than anything she could have imagined having in her life, when breathing one moment to the next was a triumph.

If she clings to that, thinks only of that, then the warmth can almost drown out the pounding fear, the snarling in her gut and the aching in her chest. Her father is dying, and she is smuggled into her own home like a servant or a criminal. As if the last time she saw him, she weren’t bartered away like a piece of meat to a monster. As if he hadn’t put a price on her head, for choosing to live and to escape.

As if a part of her didn’t still hate him, as large as the part that was still his daughter, that still loved unconditionally, as a daughter will.

They slip in a side gate, Gaston’s pace quickening as Belle trots to keep up with him. She understands, from the wide berth they are given by the other soldiers, why he is so rough with her. She is to appear a prisoner, so none will question him. A crafter or a healer may be checked; a prisoner in the hands of a knight would simply be ignored.

Once, Belle had enjoyed the attentions of the court. But that was a very long time ago.

It is not until they reach a small antechamber, in the west wing of the castle, that Gaston finally stops. He lets go of her arm gently, at odds with his formerly harsh grip, and her hand immediately flies to where he’d grasped her. She’ll have bruises come morning, she thinks, and feels sick with the knowledge that her first instinct is to not say a word about it.

“I’ll bruise,” she forces herself to say, although even that is an effort. Has she really been hurt so often that her impulse is to hide it, to not feel it, to pretend it doesn’t exist? Has it really been so long?

“I’m sorry, Belle,” he brushes his hand over her arm, softly, too softly to feel entirely right. He’d been lumbering and indelicate in their youth, well-meaning but prone to clumsiness in close quarters. But Belle supposes she has changed entirely since then, so what would have stopped him from doing the same. “Does it hurt too much?”

His face is too close to hers, and she takes a step back, moving her arm from his now-gentle hold. “No,” she says, quickly, “no, it’s fine.”

“Alright,” he nods. “Your father lies in the chamber beyond. I have told them a new nurse, a wise woman, is to come and say a spell for him. Another wise woman, and another spell, will not go amiss. Go and say your goodbyes, milady, and I will wait for you here.”

She has a lump in her throat, sudden and fierce as the grip in her stomach, the cold sweat on her brow. She nods, shakily, telling herself such a reaction is ridiculous. She’d thought never to see her father again, and had barely shed a tear. But that was bravery in a hopeless place: it is another thing entirely to be cold to the suffering of her only parent, in the calm and peace of her childhood home.

She takes trembling steps to the door, one hand on the door handle, gripping with white knuckles and pausing a moment. A look within will make it true, she thinks, childishly. She will be a girl once more, with her father dying and kingdom in ruins.

She wants to run, back to Rumpelstiltskin, back to the world of wife and mother. She is safe there, loved - loved - and warm. She is a woman, strong and brave, with stronger hands and brighter eyes. The room beyond will make her a girl, a daughter, with the trembling hands she once hid in the folds of her golden skirts, and those same wide, teary eyes. She has not been that daughter in years, and she cannot quite handle the shift.

But she breathes, deeply, and with Rumpelstiltskin’s creased, careworn face held close in mind, she steps through the door. The massive ducal bed lies across the room, and Sir Maurice is a blanket-wrapped lump, far smaller and more frail than she remembers, huddled in the centre.

At once, she flies to his side. She is alone - Gaston has banished the carers and nurses, she sees, to her relief - and without thought she has her hands cupping his cold, clammy cheeks, her scarf slipped from her face in her haste.

“Belle?” his eyes slip open, and she is crying openly, all hate and anger forgotten in the recognition of the moment, “Have you seen my Belle?”

“It’s me, papa,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead, a tear splashing on his skin, “I’m here, I came home.”

“Please, you have to send for my daughter,” he mumbles, and she feels something in her knot and freeze. “She’s about the castle somewhere… silly girl is always reading somewhere. Fetch her, please?”

“I’m here,” she sobs, again, trying desperately to make him see her, begging every God she knows of to make him hear her, “I’m here, papa, look, it’s me. I’m here.”

“No, no, my Belle’s little, see?” he rambles, and she can see the delirium now, in the glassiness in his eyes and the quiver in his lips. “Just little, my little girl, and she needs to be here. Her mother will be cross if she’s not here.”

Belle swallows hard. Her mother died of the sweat when Belle was just nine years old: if the world in her papa’s mind has his wife still alive and scolding her daughter’s lateness, then he is far back indeed.

Shaking every second, Belle sinks to her knees. “Papa,” she says again, taking off her hood, shaking out her hair and bowing her head as if in prayer. “Papa, please.”

“My Belle,” he sighs, smiling, and when she looks up, he is looking right at her. “What do you want of me, poppet?”

She swallows, hard, “Wh- where’s mama?” she asks, cautiously, needing to know where his mind is. Or should that be when?

“Oh, she’s about somewhere,” he waves his hand, and she feels the crashing disappointment. But at least, now, he knows her. She supposes she’s the right height for his memory now.

“Are you feeling any better?” she asks, although she knows he has been holding steady and near death for the past week or more. Gaston had muttered as much, as they stormed through the city streets.

“Oh, in and out,” he murmurs, “I’m fine, my girl, I’m fine…”

She breaks, suddenly and all at once, and she begins to weep into his shoulder, throwing one arm over him and holding tight. One weak arm comes from his side to lie across her shoulders, and it’s the limpest embrace she’s ever felt but it’s still wonderful. Her father, her massive, towering father, and he can barely hold her. But he is alive, he is alive and he almost knows her. It’s barely enough, but she refuses to complain or to wish for better. She knows well by now to take whatever blessings she can get.

At least he’s not angry with her, she thinks, at least he doesn’t hate her.

Blessings, small ones in a sea of horrors, but blessings none the less.

She stays there a while longer, her face buried in her father’s shoulder. She crawls up onto the bed beside him, and curls in her peasant rags as if she were the castle’s little princess once more, as if none of the past ten years have happened and everything is still fine and shining. Her arm comes across her father’s chest, and she holds him close, as he makes weak, wheezy crooning noises as if she were still a child.

He thinks she is, she knows, and what would dispel the illusion? She is skinnier than she ever was as a child, and she’s always been petite and slight. His addled mind barely knows the difference, and even this weak-armed embrace is so much better than nothing.

It doesn’t matter, none of it, while she is here. She is her father’s daughter again, and she cries for the joy of it, even the sadness of his wasting sickness forgotten in midst of a loving reunion.

He’s at death’s door, and she is a wanted criminal, but for a few minutes she can forget it all. And it’s almost, almost enough.

He drifts back into his sleep, and when he is still - but breathing, still breathing, thank the gods - she finally disentangles herself from his arms and stands. She wipes her tears on the sleeves of her heavy coat, and brings her hood up again, covers her face once more in her scarf. She leaves the way she came, and Gaston is waiting for her.

“How is he?” he asks, as if the answer has changed at all these past weeks.

“As you described,” she says, trying to sound calm and composed around the broken, shaking mess of herself beneath her skin. “Weak, confused, and wasting away. He’s fading, Gaston,” her voice quavers, but she swallows hard and thankfully it does not break, “he’s not really here.”

“I’m sorry, Belle,” he murmurs, and draws her into a long hug. She holds on a moment, ready to release him, and in their youth he would have stood back the moment she moved away. But now, he holds tighter, one hand in her hair like a brother or a lover, the other arm around her waist.

It’s nice, she supposes, to be held. But Gaston was never the one she wished to hold her this way, and now it only makes her long for her husband’s arms, for Bae’s warm, brave smile and Rumpelstiltskin’s strong hands. She wants to go home, to her family.

“Can we go back to the inn?” she asks, “My husband said they’d rest there today, and I’d like to see them.”

“Of course,” Gaston lets her go, and smiles, “I’ll take you there myself, come on.”

He takes her arm again - her other arm, this time, and gentler, to Belle’s relief - and walks her slowly through the castle, and back into the city. She is trying, through a mind desperate not to think on her father’s wasted face, his addled mind and weak limbs, to reconcile this Gaston who was her protector - seemingly grateful and even pleased to escort her to the arms of her husband - with the one who had held her so close, so intimately, mere minutes before.

They had been engaged, before the ogres struck their bargain. He alone had stood in opposition to the deal, it was true, when all others, even her father, had grimly agreed that it was necessary. He had wanted her safe, true, but he’d never wanted her. She’d loved him as a young lady will love a knight, and he’d given her a rose at the tournament and danced with her at the ball. But their love then had been nothing more than two friends playing at courtship, and had been long since buried as a phase of their youth by the time their betrothal came to pass.

He’d stood for her then as a friend, and she for him, and while she had been contented with the arrangement, she wouldn’t have chosen it. She had always believed he felt the same.

But now, now she is getting the distinct impression that his feelings have changed in the intervening years. Now he smiles with a little heat behind the old light in his eyes, and his words, as he leads her back out of the castle - no longer a prisoner, it seems, even in appearance - his conversation is more fluid and almost flirtatious than she’d ever heard it.

What happened to him, she wonders, to affect this change? When did straightforward, lumbering Gaston with his warm heart and clumsy hands become this smooth courtier?

But then, sweet, naive, intellectual little Belle became a killer, a skinny little rabbit on the run, afraid of her own shadow and hiding in a peasant shack. She would not recognise herself, she’s sure, if she put on her old dresses, curled her hair and rouged her lips. She has become an ogre-slayer, then a runner, then a wife and mother. She’s changed beyond measure, too, so who knows what force could have polished and hardened her old friend in that time?

They arrive back at the inn after a half hour of brisk walking through the city. Belle is glad she got to see a little more, this time, of her old home, and enjoyed taking in the old sandstone buildings, the bustle and excitement of market day and the bright sunshine that seems never to touch Rumpelstiltskin’s little village. It’s all too bright, too loud and hard for comfort now, but the nostalgia carries her through, as do the little jokes and anecdotes Gaston tells as they walk.

She wonders, in a dark part of her mind, if his plan is to annul her marriage when her father dies, and marry her as they planned. If he would cast off the ogre king who bellows for her head, and continue the war as Duke, use the Dark One through Belle as her father never had. He did not wish to tangle in the dark magics her grandfather had brought back from his travels, the powerful demon at their beck and call. Their duchy had suffered the ogres for it, and Belle with them.

Does Gaston intend to make her Duchess and himself Duke, and use the demon’s power? Is that the purpose of this new friendliness, the light touches at her shoulder or back and her arm that are all a little too intimate?

She wishes he would just ask, if that is the case, and then they could discuss the matter. But it is just a suspicion, not a certainty, and so she does not think too hard on it.

They arrive back at the inn, and she runs to find the inn keeper with ungainly haste. She is suddenly desperately homesick for Rumpelstiltskin and Bae, and cannot wait another moment to be reunited with them.

“Excuse me, sir,” she begins, when she finds the innkeeper behind the bar in the tavern, “I’m searching for a spinner by the name of Rumpelstiltskin, and his son? He’s my husband and we got separated at market.”

The man’s face, paunchy and florid, clouds, his eyes dark and grim. “You’re best getting yourself out of here, mistress,” he says, quietly, “your husband’s nowhere about.”

It takes Belle a moment of confusion to register the fear and tension in the man’s face, the knowledge that something terrible has happened.

And then it hits, like a boulder to the stomach. They’re gone. Lost. Taken away from her, to the gods know where.

Her heart stops, her guts a sudden knot of anxiety, sick and tight. Her head flushes hot and cold, terror and worry and a hundred terrible things rushing through her. “What?” she asks, her voice strained and hoarse with horror, “Where are they? Who took them?”

“Soldiers,” he says, shortly. “Came and raided your husband’s room, hauled the pair of them out of here.”

“Why?”

“You’d know, mistress,” he snaps, “you’re his wife. I don’t know the business of the city guard and I don’t intend to. Now, if you could be leaving, I don’t need more of that trouble on market day in my inn.”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she gasped, worrying she would vomit or collapse or both, “oh, god, I’m sorry.”

She staggered on trembling legs back to the little foyer, and collapsed into Gaston’s waiting arms. “Belle?” he asked, concern in every line of his face, every movement of his arms to hold her as she sobbed, “Belle, what happened?”

“They were caught!” she gasps, between heaving, wrenching sobs, “Oh, god, Gaston, they were caught!”

“By who?” he asks, urgently, “Belle, who took them?”

“The guard,” she says, “the city guard, they came and dragged… my poor boys, oh god, they’re gone.”

She can’t speak, can’t breathe for crying as Gaston leads her to a small bench and sets her down, sitting beside her and hauling her into his lap like a child, so she can curl and sob like a child into his shoulder. She is shaking all over, sick and almost screaming, great howling sobs muffled only by his firm shoulder against her face.

She loves them, her husband, her son. They’re her boys and she loves them with all that she is, they’re home and love and safety, and everything she has in the whole world.

And someone must have seen them together, recognised the lost princess and reported it. And now, for her crimes, her sordid past, her family are locked away in some dungeon somewhere, alone and cold and scared. All because of her. They only came to the city for her, to stand with her, and she left them to be clapped in irons and hauled into a jail cell like the lowest of criminals.

She has to break away from Gaston’s gentle arms to lean over his side, and be sick into the gutter beside them. She can’t control her body as she wretches, howling fear and heart stopping, terrible grief threatening to swallow her whole.

“We’ll get them back,” he soothes, “we’ll find them, Belle.” One hand strokes her back, while the other combs through her hair. He places a kiss to her forehead, and then another to her cheek, and she thinks he would have gone further, kissed her mouth like a lover, if she had not buried her head in his chest, and continued to cry. The storm has passed, and her brokenhearted sobs quieten to hopeless whimpers, full of despair and desolation.

Her father is dying, and does not see her when she looks into his eyes. Her husband and son are locked away in a prison far away from her, punished for knowing her, helping her. And her closest friend, her only comfort, is a courtier and a politician she feels she barely knows.

Belle is horribly, terrifyingly alone once more, and with another little shake of her head, she leans back over, and vomits once more into the gutter.

Her head swims, her eyes glazing as darkness creeps in. Her body and mind cannot handle the influx of horror, all much too much to withstand on an empty stomach and exhausted bones, and she feels herself waver.

Finally, blessedly, darkness claims her and she loses consciousness. She is lost to the world somewhere in the helpless mess of her screaming thoughts, the storm of terror and grief, and is glad when she feels the cool peace of sleep overtaking that pain.

When she awakens some time later, she lies in a soft bed, in a room she recognises. Gaston is at her bedside, in the bedroom that had been hers so very long ago, still filled with her old things that now gather dust. She blinks, sleepy and bleary-eyed. “How… how did I get here?“

“You collapsed in my arms,” he says, coming to sit on the bed, beside her. His hand comes to rest against her cheek, “I brought you back here, Belle. If you keep your face covered, the staff will believe you are a seer come to help the duchy. You can stay here while we search for your husband.”

“Okay,” she whispers, because it’s at least better than the gutter for a bed. She is too weak, to alone, too afraid to even move, even to shake off the warm, unwelcome hand at her cheek. She cannot tell him to leave, or that she doesn’t want what he silently offers, the kiss and touch he’s been offering for hours now, because what would happen if she did? She cannot be so alone; she won’t survive it. “Thank you, Gaston.”

“We’ll search come morning,” he says, softly. He kisses her forehead again, and the rises, drawing the curtains against fading sunlight. “Get some sleep, Belle. You’re exhausted.”

And, admitting defeat in that, she makes a sleepy noise of assent, and falls back into a mercifully dreamless sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

Rumpelstiltskin awakens to flickering firelight, the only bright spot in a pitch dark room. He feels dirt beneath his hands, a scattering covering a hard flagstone floor, and he jerks awake, the feel of stone slabs under his palms startling him out of his dozing. He isn’t at home, asleep on one of Belle’s rag-sewn rugs. He is in a strange, cold place, and the past few hours flood back as he sits upright.

He and Baelfire had found the inn, and their rooms, and waited patiently, if anxiously, for Belle’s return. But they had not been there an hour before the Ducal Guard had broken down the door, cold and stern, all business, and arrested them. He knew not on what charge: he had been too busy begging them to spare Bae. But Bae had been clapped in irons also.

“Bae?” he calls, panicked. What if they’d been taken for hiding him from conscription? He is suddenly sick to his stomach, struck by a vision of his poor son dragged to a soldiers’ camp far away, cold and dirty and alone, waiting to fight and die. The very fate he’d sought so long to avoid for him, and now…

“Papa?” Bae’s voice comes from close by, not two feet away, and when Rumpelstiltskin shifts his bad foot he can feel the sturdy shape of his son’s leg against it. He sighs in shaky relief: whatever had happened, at least they had been kept together. For now.

“Are you alright, son?”

“I’m fine, papa,” Bae assures him, “just a little bruised. How are you?”

“The same,” he agrees, thankful for small mercies. They are neither of them badly injured, and they are together. Rumpelstiltskin has found himself better, recently, at feeling gratitude for little favours. He thinks that Belle is likely responsible for that. “Did you see Belle anywhere?”

“I haven’t seen her,” Bae replies, “papa, she might not even know we’re here.”

At that thought, another wave of anxiety rushes over Rumpelstiltskin. He remembers how she panicked, how she suffered, when they had disappeared that morning to speak with Sir Gaston. If she came back to find them gone… he doesn’t want to think of how she’d react. The thought fills him with a horrid mixture of misery, fear, guilt, and a surprising amount of anger. Someone had separated them. His family. Where always before that thought had held such terror and sadness, now there is fury too. 

Rumpelstiltskin was never a man prone to anger, but when he thinks now of how much Belle has already struggled, suffered, fought for every little scrap of happiness, and how he and Bae have had to do the same for so very long… yes, now he is angry. They were strong together, and now they are brought low once more. It would be enough, he thinks, to drive even the most timid dormouse into a rage.

“Did you hear where we were?” Rumpelstiltskin asks next. “They knocked me out before I saw much of anything.”

He can make out the shape of Bae now, the darkness only barely illuminated by one torch, bolted to the wall. His head shakes, and Rumpelstiltskin sighs.

“I’m no longer bound,” Bae says. “Maybe-“

“You’re in the Ducal Palace’s dungeon,” a voice, cracked and wheezy, croaks from the gloom. Rumpelstiltskin jumps and throws out a hand, to have it slam into iron bars. A prison then, he thinks, with a wince of pain as he cradles his right hand. He’d thought as much. “Oh no,” the voice continues, “don’t panic. The bars would keep me from harming you, even if I were able or willing.”

“Papa?” Bae asks, with a tremor of fear in his voice. Rumpelstiltskin beckons his son to his side, and Bae crawls quickly to sit beside him. He is shaking, poor lad, and again a bolt of anger cracks through Rumpelstiltskin’s bones. Bae is a brave, strong lad, so far removed from his father’s weakness and cowardice. He should not cower, tremble and cry. No one should be allowed to make it so.

“I’m here son,” he promises, “they’ll not take you away.”

“No,” the voice agrees, “they won’t. If you’re here now, you’ll be likely left alone, save for feeding and weekly washing. Every now and then they may let you walk in the yard, to save your muscles. Maybe.”

“For how long?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, trying to hide his own fear for Bae’s sake. He hears a creak of clothing and irons, as if the man has shrugged.

“Long as they like, I suppose. I’ve been here a good year or so, and I don’t think I’ll be let out anytime soon.”

“Your name, friend?” Rumpelstiltskin had read the wanted posters, as they rolled into town. Names of thieves, bandits and murderers, as well as many deserters, all worth their price if handed over to the army or the Guard. He hoped that he’d not recognise the man’s name as a dangerous criminal. With the way his luck had always ran, it seems almost typical that he and Bae would ended up caged next to the Frontlands’ most notorious killer.

“My given name’s Renard,” the man says. “Yourself?”

It isn’t an answer, not when men born higher than peasantry are often known by a surname, but then Rumpelstiltskin can have no idea what rank of man he might be addressing. In any case, the name rings no immediate alarm bells. Another small favour, he thinks.

“Rumpelstiltskin.” The man makes a soft noise, like a release of breath or a soft snort.

“A peasant name,” he says, not unkindly. “How in the name of the Gods did you end up in the Duke’s own dungeon?”

“If I knew that,” Rumpelstiltskin snaps, bitterly, “then I’d have known how we got here, how to get my boy out.”

“And you, boy,” the man addresses Bae, and Rumpelstiltskin stiffens. “What is your name? How old are you?”

“My name is Baelfire,” he replies, in a voice far stronger and more defiant than his father’s. “And I’m fourteen.”

“Fourteen’s a young age to be locked away for life,” he man notes. Rumpelstiltskin bristles at his casual tone.

“It doesn’t seem too young for a boy to be sent to war and killed,” he snaps. “I assume you’re not peasantry like us,” he continues, almost spitting the words in his anger. “Were you ever part of the conscription?”

The man sighs, and Rumpelstiltskin regrets his outburst. While Belle can surely, surely, find them and save them soon, this man is a prisoner as much as they are. Surely he has better manners than this, a better hold on his temper.

“No,” the man says, “I… the new conscription started directly after my imprisonment. I tried to stop it as much as I could, before… I told them that it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t honourable or fair to send children to fight where grown men had been slaughtered like cattle.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Bae asked, softly. “Did they lock you up for disagreeing?”

“Ah, Baelfire,” the man said, in that same almost kindly, sympathetic tone, “would that I could say why I am here.”

“Why can’t you?” Bae asked next, and Rumpelstiltskin could hear the inquisitive frown in his son’s voice. “Do you not know, either?”

“Oh, I know all too well,” the man said, “it’s not ignorance that binds my tongue, I assure you. Although… well, my betrothed always was the brains of the outfit. I don’t know very much of any use, I’m afraid. I’m a soldier. I know how to fight, and I know when something feels like deadly sin.”

“You know nothing of the Dark One, then?” Rumpelstiltskin can’t think why that, of all their concerns, is forefront in his mind. But it is all he can imagine to ask, without revealing who they are, who Belle is, why they’re really in the capital. Why he suspects they’ve been imprisoned. 

Rumpelstiltskin knows little of politicking and prison cells, but he knows enough to keep his mouth shut on important information.

To his surprise, the prisoner lets out a wheezing chuckle, “Oh, no, friend. On that topic I know a great deal. Why, what do you need to know of the demon?”

“He has an interest in my wife,” Rumpelstiltskin admits, softly, after only a moment’s hesitation. “I’d know the worst of it, if I could. I’m not a brave man, nor strong, but… I love her. I need to know.”

“Ah,” the man breathes. There is a heartbeat of silence, long enough for Rumpelstiltskin to think that, perhaps, he will not answer at all. And then, slowly, the man speaks once more. “And you would stop him, if you could?”

“I would save my wife,” Rumpelstiltskin says, staunchly. “She deserves a far better fate than what she’s been dealt.”

“I knew a woman like that,” the man replies softly. “My betrothed was beautiful, kind, more clever than me by far. And I let her go to a fate worse than death. I let that happen.”

“Help us, then,” Bae says. “Don’t make it happen again.”

“It is a powerful magic that binds my tongue, boy,” he says, “but I can tell you this, make of it what you must.” He turns then, and presses his face through the bars. Rumpelstiltskin shrinks back in horror at the face illuminated now by the dim candlelight, and Baelfire gasps and stiffens beside him.

For through the dirt, the pallor, the obvious signs of gaunt hunger, Rumpelstiltskin knows the man. He knows that face, although when he’d seen it last it had been fuller, stronger, full of confidence. And mere hours ago.

“My name is Sir Renard Gaston,” the man says, softly. “And a beast has taken my form.”

—

When Belle wakes again, she is alone, and it is night.

She cannot sleep any longer, too awake now and her mind too active. She slips from her bed quietly, and feels the rustle of a silk nightgown around her knees. Someone dressed and changed her. But now she is alone.

She pushes down immediately the grief, anxiety, and pain caused by the lack of her husband and their son. They’ll be found, their captors punished, and they’ll all be safe again. 

She stops her train of thought there, stubbornly, for fear she’ll lose her mind once more.

She busies herself with washing in the bowl provided, days of dirt and sweat from the road cleansed from her skin and what she can reach of her hair. She focuses only on washing, on drying, and then on finding clothes. Nothing else, nothing more.

Thankfully, her room has changed little in the intervening years. Some of her old dresses still hang in the wardrobe, old stockings and underthings in the drawers. Almost everything the servants did not pack into the Ogre Prince’s carriage is where she left it, and she blames the dust for the tears that gather in her eyes.

She pulls on an old woollen dress and the matching stockings and slippers, the simple, inexpensive clothes she wore those dark wartime days when she pitched in with the maids to send supplies to their knights. Even the simple fine cotton lining is bliss against skin so used to rough, peasant weave. 

She will leave all of this behind, she knows, when she has to leave. And much as her new life, the lovely simplicity of husband, hearth and family, is more than she could have wished for, there are things that she misses that lie in this room. To leave behind her trinkets, her mother’s portrait and her hairbrush, her stockings and the little china doll from her childhood once more will not be easy.

Belle nearly stamps her foot at the sudden, unexpected anger that takes her then. Her husband is missing, as is her son. Her home is perhaps unreachable, her father dying, a demon on the loose and she perhaps his target. And all of it because she made a choice for the good of all, and refused to die a shameful death.

She takes the sackcloth bag she’d carried all this way, sat at the foot of the bed, and begins to cram anything she might miss that could be carried into it. She won’t leave these behind again, not again: wherever she goes next, she goes as everyone she has ever been. No more running, no more pretending. Belle is as much her mother’s noble daughter as she is Rumpelstiltskin’s wife, as she is the runner who landed on his doorstep all those many months ago and begged sanctuary.

When she is done, she spends another half hour working the tangles from her hair. She has achieved a state of calm, now, of peace, perhaps born of hysteria or shock. There are things to do, she thinks, perhaps things better suited to a woman who feels more the princess than Belle does with her scratched face and matted hair. If she must stand as her old self once more, she will at least look the part.

It calms her further, finally brushing out her hair. She will find her family, and when they leave - when, not if, she has lost too much and the gods will not take more, not again - she will take money with her. They will be comfortable and safe. They will be free.

When she is done, she is startled by the face in the mirror. With her hair once more clean and loose around her shoulders, she can see clearly the change the past two years have wrought. Her face is much thinner, her hair too: she looks twenty years older than she did, for all that her skin is still smooth, her body still that of a young woman. Her eyes hold such damage, such pain, that she can barely look.

She turns from her mirror, and walks to the door without another moment’s hesitation. Gaston is waiting in the little drawing room, stood by the armchair, waiting.

“Belle?” Gaston is surprised - and pleased, she thinks, with that unhappy fear of his hopes once more intruding - as she appears in the doorway, almost her old self again. “You found your things?”

“They’re mine, are they not?” she says, with as much a smile as she can force to her lips. “I can’t walk around papa’s castle as a peasant, not even hidden like this. Not without-“

“Without your husband,” Gaston finishes, softly. “Yes, I understand. He must be very valuable to you.”

It is a strange word, but accurate, she supposes. Her stomach tightens at the thought of her Rumpelstiltskin. “Any word?” she asks, her voice trembling slightly however much she reaches for stability, “Have you found them?”

“Not yet, but we’re looking,” he tries to comfort her, a hand rubbing her shoulder that remains even when it stills. They are alone, she realises uncomfortably, not a guard or a maid about. Strange, but then Gaston must have more power here than she’d thought, with being her father’s second’s son, and so many gone or dead. Maybe he’s still hiding her, and has sent everyone else away to keep them from recognising her.

She looks up at him, and tries to find the understanding, the grave, sad kindness in his eyes that will soothe her, that always had when she’d been broken. When she lost her kitten at ten years old, he had promised to find her and looked at Belle thus. When her mama died when Belle was twelve, his grave eyes had held her firm as his hand in hers at the funeral. It was a safety, of sorts, and she needs it now. She needs it to know that they are still who they’d been, that she still has that much at least.

His mouth is a firm, sad line, but his eyes, no matter how hard she looks… his eyes hold none of that true compassion, but instead a spark of calculation, as if he is trying for genuine sadness but there is something else there instead. Something wrong.

He’d have held her hand, she thinks dimly, not her shoulder. They’ve always held hands in times of trouble, but he’s not reached for hers once.

“Gaston?” she asks, voice a little high with fear, “You are… looking, aren’t you?”

“Of course, my dear,” he says, soothingly, but it doesn’t soothe at all. It worries, rankles, falls sickly and wrong in her ears. “But it would help if I could tell them for what it was we looked.”

“You’ve met my husband and son, Ren,” she says, softly, accusingly, using a nickname he’d abandoned when his knighthood came and hoping it will give him pause. “You know how they look, who they are.”

“Oh, that I do,” he agrees. “But my men don’t know why they look. What knight cares about two peasants, an old cripple and a young boy, too old and too young for war? ‘Why are we looking?’ they ask.”

“Why would they ask at all?” she demands, sharply, hysteria rising like a wave in her breast, “You are their captain, you give their orders!”

“I have been away some time,” Gaston reminds, “looking for you. They are wary of me now, of where my sympathies lie.” His eyes gleam brighter, a smile replacing his concerned frown. It burns her to watch.

“Why am I here? What do you want of me?” she asks, her voice a horrified whisper, because now, now she sees the avarice in his eyes, so alien and so awful to behold within her oldest friend. He alone had asked her not to go with the Ogres, when they demanded her as payment. He had protected her and wished to sacrifice himself, instead. He’d never been greedy - prideful, perhaps, and impulsive, but honest and true also, and so noble it had broken her heart - but there it is, utter, horrible greed. He wants something of her, first, before he will help. Perhaps his men aren’t even looking.

She takes a stumbling step back, and another, back toward the wall and away from him. He follows. “I only need an assurance that you are still who you were,” he says, silkily. “All the city would be seeking them, praying for their safety, if they knew you wished it, if they were your rescuers.”

“But the Dark One…” she whispers, shaking her head, “We cannot risk his knowing where I am, that I still live. It’s too dangerous.”

“The Dark One knows you live already,” he says, a little harsher than before. “Come along, Belle, it’s me. It’s your Ren, your knight. We were to be married, weren’t we? We could control him, together, cure your father and set the duchy to rights! No one would hurt your loved ones again.”

“Wait, you… want to be Duke?” she asks, bewildered, “You never wanted that. Begged not to have to be, in fact.”

“And you were never most comfortable in wool and sackcloth,” he says, impatiently, “but war changes us all.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she shakes her head, and his hand is back on her shoulder, steadying her. Trapping her. Cutting off her air. Her back hits the wall. She is crowded, backed into a corner. “I am married already, I have my family. Take the kingdom, take the Dark One, have them for yourself. All I want is my family. All I want is to go home.”

She is crying now, the calm from before broken and the storm unleashed. He didn’t haul her close and pet her now, though, he only watches her tears roll and her whole body shake with unimpressed eyes, and hands on her shoulders too firmly to shake off. His arms had once been safety; now they stand as a cage, to keep her inside, to keep her from running away.

She’d never been afraid of him before, never. But now there is a gleam in his eyes that terrifies her, and what has war done to him? What could have been so awful, so damaging, to change her stalwart best friend into this?

“We all want that,” he croons, “all of us. But you alone can control him, and so you cannot leave.”

“Where are my family, Gaston?” she demands, shaking, terrified and desperate once more. The last time she’d felt thus, she’d cut her Ogre-husband’s throat with his own knife, and fled out of a tower window, soaked in his dark, thick blood. Her hands had shaken and she’d laughed like a madwoman, like a wild thing, like a monster. Belle is not harmless, she never was, and no monster, not even one she had once loved so dearly, will enslave her again.

“My men would find them quickly, if…” he smiles, slowly, and she snarls.

“If what?”

“If you were to marry me,” he says, as if every word were delicious. All traces of the man she knew have fled, now, and she wonders if they were ever there. If he had been just pretending, ever since they were reunited, to be at all the kind and open boy he’d been when they parted. If it had all been a plan to lead them here, to this ultimatum. To a place where she cannot deny him all that his sickened, wretched soul craves.

“I can’t,” she shakes her head. “I am already married, you know that! I love him, I won’t go back on my word to him for you. ”

“Or for him?” Gaston shakes his head, “Not even for his life?”

“His life?” she asks, the horror sinking in even deeper, like bricks and boulders in her gut. “Are you threatening me?”

“Threaten is an ugly word,” he says, leaning in too close, his breath on Belle’s cheek, “but accurate, I suppose.”

“I’ll find him myself,” she snarls, trying to push him away with both hands on his chest. He barely sways, the force of her little body nothing to his mountainous strength. “Let me go!”

“Our betrothal means more than a monster’s bargain or a peasant’s promise,” he croons, slowly, and she winces away from his hot breath on her face. “We can be as we were, Belle. We can be each other’s strength, and we can keep our lands safe. I’m sorry I had to take some leverage to convince you, but-“

“You took them?” she asks, aghast, although he’d already admitted as much. Of course he took them, she thinks dully, of course. Because everything in her life is tainted and broken, even Gaston, even her own soul. Especially those. She was a fool to trust them at all.

“They’re safe and sound,” he assures her, “Just say you’ll stay with me. Be my wife. And they walk free.”

There it is. Another marriage bargain, another enslavement, another gilded cage. Another man who will likely hurt her for his own amusement, if given a chance. Belle can tell a kind man in need from a monster slaking his greed, and Gaston is not like Rumpelstiltskin. His soul is black with his sin, now, and she has been here too often, too many times. She won’t do it again.

“I don’t want to be your wife,” she begs, her tears flowing once more, hot and fast. “Please, please, let me go. Let them go. You were my best friend, if that meant anything then please don’t do this.”

“I am still your friend,” he promises, “that’s why I have to do this.”

His hand slides down her side, away from where is safe, across her chest. The other has strayed from shoulder to hip, and he holds her close as if he is her husband already, as if he is her lover. As if he’d take her here and now.

“Why are we alone?” she asks, wriggling away as hard as she can, hands straining against his shoulders, “where is the council? If we’re to be married, where’re the witnesses?”

“Oh, but you’re covered in the stench of that peasant, Belle,” he sneers, with an ugly smile, “I’d hardly let you before them like that.” He steps closer, crushing her against him, hands roaming and grasping, touching skin that recoils at his bruising fingers. “You reek of hay, of rolling in it with him. You’re a peasant’s whore, Belle, and they’ll see it the second they see you.” 

He leans in close to her ear, his arm now wrapped around her waist while his hand brushes her breast. She feels she may vomit again with fear, with trying uselessly to escape, with how similar and familiar this feels to the last time a man tried to marry her, to keep her, to use her. To abuse her. “I’ll cleanse you. Make you mine,” he hisses. “And we hardly want witnesses to that, do we?” he fans a hand over her breast and squeezes, grinning, “It could take several hours, after all, and a lot of screaming.”

Her mind is tumbling spiralling, as his hand starts to draw up her dress and her back is pushed hard against the stone wall, and his mouth finally stops spitting its poison, moving to leave disgusting, wet kisses to her neck. “Please don’t do this,” she weeps, trembling from head to foot, unable to stop, trying to scream through the clog and pain in her throat. “Please, stop!”

“Don’t pretend you’re better than this,” she can feel his ugly sneer against her skin, as he grasps her breast and squeezes harder, pain lancing through her. “As if you’ll fuck both an ogre and a cripple but not your betrothed,” he bites at her skin, hard enough to draw blood, and now she screams. Her fists beat at his chest, his face, anything she can reach. He barely flinches, his hands digging into her skin to leave scores and bruises, every inch of her skin a riot of sickness and pain and utter, horrible, sickening fury.

She’d kill him, she thinks, with stark and terrible clarity, here and now. Their friendship, their childhood, everything they ever shared crumbles to dust and ashes around them. Nothing is left but the desperate, feral hunter she has become, and the monster that is violating, hurting her. Whatever happened to him, to her, to the world around them since they parted, it doesn’t matter. She’d kill him, and feel his blood rush and pour from his veins into her hands, a deathblow for every stab of pain from his crushing fingers, for every horrible, wet lap of his tongue, for how very difficult it is for her to draw her shuddering, terrified breaths with his weight crushing her wasted, fragile body.

She fumbles her hand on the table to her side, trying to focus on that and not on her pounding heart, his foul breath, the horror that floods every sense and leaves her shaking and numb. There’s the handle of something, smooth and leather, and her hand grasps it like a lifeline.

It matters not what it is, a candlestick, hairbrush, anything will do, anything is a weapon. She’s been here too often, bound and helpless and violated, bruised and cut and bitten, stripped down to nothing and left to sob and bleed. No more. Never again.

Her thumb feels a sharp edge. The Gods are beside her: she has found a blade.

Without another thought, another word, she brings her hand in a swift and terrible arc and plunges it into his back.

He stiffens and cries out, falling forward as his hands slacken and she darts free. His dark blood is all over her hand, and she grasps the hilt of the dagger again in both hands, driving it ever further into his back, twisting it, pulling it around. She pulls it out and plunges it back in again, stabbing and stabbing, until he is dead - truly dead, he has to be, gone and dead and oh, gods, she is free but at what cost? - and she can breathe once more.

Then there’s a low groan, like a chuckle, and she rolls him over without knowing why to find him grinning. His face is not his own, nor is his body. Where Gaston’s massive form lay there is now an older man, paunchier and with fewer teeth, a stranger who grins like a demon. “Who are you?” she asks, every muscle and word trembling.

“Your father’s pet, princess,” the man hisses, “and now your Curse.”

“The Dark One.” She stares at him in blank horror, her voice rising to hysterical sobbing as she demands, “You made me kill you! Why?”

“My life was a burden,” he says, with sick relish, “your father made it so. Now he will look at his dearest, only child, and see my eyes staring back. The taint is yours, now. It is your burden to bear.” He sighs a long, low death-rattle. She feels something cold and hot and altogether wrong, like fire and ice both, seeping up her arms from where his blood stains her, slow and inexorable as time or the ocean, and seeping into her soul.

“I won’t,” she shook her head, terror rising ever, impossibly higher, and she screams with it but no sound seems to issue, “I won’t be this, I won’t!”

“You have no choice,” the Dark One mocks, “Your name rests on my dagger, my soul in your body, my power in your veins. Do with it what you will, princess. Enjoy your shackles.”

“No, you have to stop it, please, I’ll-“

He laughed, a wheezing, whining, terrible sound, victorious and dying all at once. And then his body lies truly slack, his eyes closed, and Belle feels her whole body shaking harder and harder until she rocks with it, screams it, her fury hardening into pure power, into a force she can hardly contain and, suddenly, now, no longer wishes to. The cold fire that had filled her and sickened her when he breathed now settles into her body as if it were always there, as if it belongs, roaring into life and filling her with strength, calming her shaking, mortal bones and hardening them to diamond and tempered steel, and filling her skin with new, impenetrable life.

She stands, smoothly, gracefully. She feels newly strong, stronger than ever. She had killed the ogre prince, and been strong soaked in his blood, but that was nothing to this. Now she has killed the Dark One too, and taken his power for her own. Now she is unstoppable, and nothing, no one will hurt her again. No one ever could. 

It’s not a Curse, a burden, she thinks, not this. Not this raw power, this feeling like she could level cities and burn mountains. This is beauty itself. This is power. No one will break her, not ever again.

They’ll not break her family, either. She will find them, and she will free them, and she will keep them safe and close forever. No one will harm her or hers again. On this she swears.

Her family kept her and held her and made her whole when she was nothing but a broken shell. They nurtured her, and made her enough to become what she is now. Strong, alive, unstoppable. 

She smiles, every part of her alive as it hasn’t been in an eternity, perhaps ever before, and turns that fearsome smile upon the rest of the world.

No one will ever hurt her or her kin again. And she will burn the bones from anyone who tries.


	16. Chapter 16

“Papa,” Bae shakes Rumpelstiltskin’s arm, but his father sits frozen still in shock and fear and barely sways with the motion, “Papa! Who’s with Belle?”

“Belle?” The other prisoner - Sir Gaston, apparently - is suddenly all alert. “Surely… you can’t mean the Duke’s daughter?”

Bae nods, urgently, “She’s my step-mama, my papa’s new wife. She was… she was supposed to be with you. Safe.”

“She’s not safe, my boy,” Gaston said, and Bae is thankful for the urgency in his voice: at least someone is ready to move. Papa just sits there, staring blankly through the bars. It’s somehow just as scary as the thought of Belle trapped with a monster. “She’s with the very demon that wants to murder us all and devour the land. We have to get to them before-“

“Before she dies,” Rumpelstiltskin says, softly, terribly, his voice shaken and hard as Bae has never heard it before. “I let her go with him,” he whispers, “I… I let her go.”

“By that logic, I let him possess me, friend,” Gaston mutters, grimly. “It wasn’t your face he used.”

“I promised I wouldn’t let her go,” Rumpelstiltskin repeats, heedless of the knight’s words, his eyes fixed on the wall.

“I don’t think he can hear us,” Gaston sighs, looking at Bae now. Bae nods, shakily, thankful for someone who seems like he can do something to help. Gaston is a knight, he saves people, that’s what knights do. 

Papa could save them, too, Bae thinks: if he’d only move, say something more than those four terrible words over and over again, ‘I let her go’.

“What’s the matter with him?” Bae asks, shaking his papa’s shoulder again, “Papa?”

“He’s in shock, it happens to even the best soldiers,” Gaston says, calmly, and Bae feels his calm settle his own fevered mind, just a little bit. “He’ll come around in a few minutes, with any luck. In the meantime, we need to get out of here.”

“How?” Bae asks, desperately, “There’s no way out! You said so yourself!”

“I don’t know, boy” Gaston sits back on the floor, the purpose seeming almost to drain out of him, as he runs a hand through the shaggy, tangled mass of his hair. “I don’t know.”

Hopeless silence descends, punctuated only by Rumpelstiltskin’s mutterings, over and over, and Bae’s harsh, panicked breathing. His eyes dart around, desperately seeking an escape route that, of course, doesn’t exist. This is the Duke’s dungeon: it wasn’t built with escape in mind.

Then there is a crash, from outside, a whimper, a shout. Another crash; another scream. Silence.

“Belle?” Rumpelstiltskin’s head snaps around, eyes wild and desperate, to face the doorway, and there, yes, there, surrounded by the light from the hallway, is a woman of Belle’s height and build, a dagger clutched in one hand. She steps a little closer, out of the glare and into the shadow, and Bae can see her face, even hidden as it is by blood and dirt. 

“Belle!” Bae cries, scrambling to the bars and reaching through to her. But Belle doesn’t run to him, collapse to her knees, and hug him as he expects. Instead she just stands, staring as Rumpelstiltskin stares back, eyes locked on them but somehow unseeing. Gaston starts to speak, but Bae can’t make out what he’s saying through the roaring in his ears. 

As his eyes adapt to the new light, Bae can see how torn and tattered Belle’s dress has become, and the blood that cakes her skin and clothing and mats her hair. Not her blood: someone else’s. It covers every inch of her, obscuring the paleness of her skin; she looks like a demon, and her eyes are wild and feral in the firelight.

“Belle?” he says, doubtfully. 

“Yes, Bae?” she says, at last, but her voice isn’t soft and warm as once it was, but hard, steely, too sharp for his soft stepmother. Her eyes don’t leave Rumpelstiltskin.

“Are you… alright?”

“Never better, Bae.” Her smile is full of razorblades, and it sends a chill down his spine. 

“Wh- what happened to you?”

She steps forward, and again, and again. She spreads her hands. “I found my inheritance,” she says, grinning that too-sharp smile. “And I’m not afraid of anything.”

She comes close to the bars, and raises her arms wide. The bars vanish before her hands, and Bae flinches back, throws himself back from the purple cloud of magic that removes the barrier between them. His papa catches him, holds him tight against his thin chest.

“Where is she?” Gaston demands, “What did you do with her?”

Belle’s head snaps to him, hard, sharp, too sharp. “I’m me, Gaston. I’m Belle. It’s not a demon, I’m not a shade. I’m me. And you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“What did you do?” he whispers, stunned, shocked, scared. The knight is terrified, and Bae feels his stomach clench tighter, his hands shaking where they clasp his papa’s around his waist.

“I killed the Dark One,” Belle smiles, wider, laughs: the sound is like breaking glass. “I’m free.”

“Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin says. Just that, just her name, nothing more. Her eyes settle on him, then, and finally soften.

“Rumple,” she breathes, and runs across the cell, collapsing to her knees, the hard, cold, terrible figure of before gone in a moment as she gathers them close in her arms. She’s stronger than before, holds them both tighter, and they cling to her, Bae trembling all over as he sobs his relief. She holds hem against her, and for a moment everything seems right again. Belle is alive, the monster is dead, and maybe, now, they can all go home.

His tears land on her skin, but the blood doesn’t move. Bae frowns, and rubs at it with his finger. His hand doesn’t meet skin, there isn’t any skin there: instead, there’re hard, rough scales, like armour, like a lizard’s skin.

“Belle?” he pulls away, and her strong arm allows him to. He looks up at her face. There is blood there, yes, but close-to, with her face so close to his, he can see now that the darkness he’d mistaken for blood and dirt is in fact her skin. Her scales. Belle has scales. “What happened to you?”

“I killed a demon, Bae,” she whispers, with fierce delight. “And no one can hurt us again.”

—

They bring her home, but there is no joy, no peace, in this homecoming. Belle is tense and vigilant on the road, even as Gaston, in lieu of the Duke, grants them a full escort and fast horses. She doesn’t speak, she just watches, and the men grant her a wide berth.

Bae and Rumpelstiltskin, neither one of them able to ride, huddle together in the back of a carriage. Nobody speaks.

The soldiers leave them at the border of the forest, and the little family go on alone. Rumpelstiltskin wraps his arm around Belle’s shoulders, her hood obscuring her face from view but her hands clenched at her sides. She’s worried, braced for an attack; Bae can’t blame her.

The men had watched her as if she were about to flare out and destroy someone, and Bae knew that his papa hadn’t the conviction to contradict their fears. For all they know, this creature who has subsumed Belle is capable of anything.

“We made it,” she breathes, as they reach the threshold. She hasn’t spoken properly since the jail cell, when Gaston had told her that it would be better to put about that the monster had killed her, if she didn’t want to take the throne. She’d had a moment of indecision, before saying she wanted to come home with them instead. The pause had eaten Bae alive.

He slides his hand into hers, unknotting her gold-green fist and wrapping his longer fingers around hers. “We’re home, mama,” he says, cautiously. She nods, and smiles down at him: sometimes he thinks he’s the only one in the world she still smiles for.

Papa holds her close a moment, and then steps inside and starts lighting the candles. Bae seats Belle in her chair by the fire, as he goes out to get the trunks of new things Gaston had piled on them before they left: fresh candles, new clothes, heaped baskets of food. He felt guilty, and Bae cannot blame him. A lot of bad things have happened lately, and even if the knight was now supposedly back to his honourable self, his face still carries a terrible memory. Bae is thankful, at least, to be out of the capital.

When he comes back inside, his papa is sat on the stool at Belle’s feet, talking to her quietly. Bae cannot make out the words, but papa’s hand is on her knee, and Belle is leaning in to listen, her head cocked to one side, birdlike.

The next days are long and dark, winter setting in at last. Bae watches as his mama and papa speak less and less with every passing hour - papa spins, mama stares at her hands or tries to light a candle with her mind some days, or reads the books her knight sent with them on others. Bae goes for walks: the house is claustrophobic, with all the unspoken words hanging in the air.

Belle starts going for walks too, longer and farther than Bae’s, into the woods or out to the plains, as far as Longbourne one night. Rumpelstiltskin watches her go with eyes that break Bae’s heart. He hasn’t the heart to ask her to stay.

One night, she comes home late, once Bae has already been sent to bed. The wind is howling, a storm lashing the sides of their little home, and Bae cannot sleep anyhow, especially not knowing that Belle has not returned. His papa has waited up, sat by the door with his spindle, supposedly spinning while actually waiting for his errant wife to come home.

There’s a bang on the door, and once that would have meant a hundred things. But there are no soldiers to hunt them, no demons seeking them, and so Rumpelstiltskin does not holler a question, nor ignore the knock entirely in fear of their guest. There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore… well, nothing that could be knocking at the door, at any rate.

Bae watches through the crack in his door, as his papa swings the front door open, and makes a little noise of shock, of horror.

It is like a perverse re-enactment of their first meeting, Bae thinks as he watches his papa sink to his knees, bad leg jutted out at an angle, beside his prone wife. She is stripped to her white shift, covered in someone else’s blood and dirty rain, her hair plastered to her mottled face, her hands shaking as she stares at him with unseeing eyes.

“Rumple,” she whispers, and clutches him close. Bae watches his papa’s shoulder sink, as he heaves a long sigh of relief into her soaked hair. Belle holds onto him for dear life, sobbing and retching at his shoulder, and he rocks her, slowly, crooning his love for her, her safety, the world the way it should be. 

“You’re home now,” he murmurs, “you’re safe.”

“We’re safe,” she corrects, fiercely, pulling back and cradling his face. “There’s no one left to hurt us now.”

Bae tries to deny the chill of fear at her words; he finds he cannot. He closes the door; he doesn’t want to think of what price Belle must have paid for their safety.

The second night Belle doesn’t come home, the war ends.

They both worry, when she says she’ll be gone a while, and unreasonably so. But the questions are undeniable as they are troublesome: what if someone managed to steal the dagger that is safely buried beneath their floorboards? What if someone threatened them, and she went to fight them, freshly bloodied and invincible in the sunlight? What if the worst happened, and despite all her promises, all her powers, and Belle does not come home?

In the end, Bae cannot sleep that night. Their world has a hole on it, when he thinks of it without her. Papa is tired and anxious, and Belle, once the balm to Bae’s papa’s troubled mind and body, is now the source of his discomfort. There’s nothing that can be done for it: she doesn’t listen, when they ask what happened, if it can be reversed. 

All she ever does is tell them not to worry, that she’ll keep them safe. The silence in between those repetitions is stifling, and the words themselves are losing their strength more every day.

He cannot sleep, and so he goes to his papa’s room, and stands by the bed. He leans in close, “I’ll be home soon, papa, I’m just off for a walk.”

“Bae?” his papa murmurs, “It’s the middle of the night, go back to bed.”

“I know, but Belle’s not home yet. I’m just going up to the hill, I’ll be back by daybreak.”

“What if you aren’t?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, sitting up a little, “Son, after everything that’s happened…”

“I know, papa. But I can’t sleep, and I’m older now. Belle wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

“Belle isn’t here, go back to bed.”

“No, you go back to sleep,” Bae insists, “I’ll be home soon. Please, papa, I can’t just sit here waiting for her to come back…”

“You know she will,” his papa says, but it sounds uncertain even now. “You know that.”

“Someday, maybe,” Bae mumbles. They’ve neither of them the bravery to admit that Belle has yet to come home, that she hasn’t been Belle since they left her in the market back in the city. The creature that returned to them is both Belle and not, and neither can admit that what is left of her can never be quite enough.

“I’ll be home before you know it,” he says at last: his papa gives up trying to stop him.

Bae carries the little knife Gaston gave him as a parting gift - an apology, too if Bae thinks about it, but apologies make him sick these days so he chooses not to - on his belt. He fancies he can handle anything that comes at him, although who would attack the son of the Dark One? Who would be that foolish?

He walks from the house, and up the lane to the hilltop on the edge of town. There’s a stump up there that’s good to sit on, where the children play sometimes when it’s warm. Played, he should say, they played there when the town still had children. Now it has scared parents and empty beds, and it’s only become worse since they brought the Dark One home with them. The people blame Bae’s mama for the war, although they’re too scared to come and blame her themselves. There’s a reason the gate is always closed, and even Morraine’s parents don’t smile across the track anymore.

He settles himself down on the stump, and pulls out the apple he brought for breakfast. He can barely taste it, but he eats anyway: better that than starving, and having Belle blame someone for the loss.

The sun is rising, and the sky is red as blood when he sees them on the horizon. At first it appears to be an advancing shadow, a horde, but when they draw closer Bae can see more detail, armour flashing in the sunlight and a tattered banner held in the midst. 

Belle marches at the head of an army, glorious and dangerous, wild and beautiful, her hair free like a mane around her face, long blue dress stained and whipping behind her, a sword in her hand. The children of the Frontlands, hundreds upon hundreds of them, from little boys like Bae to hard young men, battle-scarred and aged beyond telling, all trooping home behind their saviour.

That’s the day when Rumpelstiltskin knows that whatever choice Belle made, whatever deal she struck, was worth it: she lead the children home.

And the town rejoices.

Suddenly, Belle is lauded as a hero, although she still hides inside, still shakes when too many eyes fall on her. Bae is invited to play with the children she rescued, and when he looks back he can see her watching from her window, as she reads her books, the magic texts she brought home with her, and tries to master her powers.

It’s the effect on his father that Bae worries about: Rumpelstiltskin still sits with his spinning wheel in the yard, and spins his yarn as if the world has not changed. He doesn’t ask Belle about her magic, nor comment when she tries to engage him in conversation. And when she goes out for days at a time, and comes home bleeding or bearing gifts, he doesn’t ask her where she’s been.

“Are you happy, Rumple?” Belle asks, one night, abruptly. Bae pretends he doesn’t hear, absorbed in his carving, hidden at the back of the room. His parents sit by the fire, close enough to touch and cold enough not to.

“I’m not unhappy,” Bae’s papa says, at last. It isn’t an answer.

—

People are afraid of Rumpelstiltskin’s wife, and him too by association.

But he says he doesn’t care, when she asks him, worriedly, if everything is alright, if he regrets it. She is alive, and safe, and Bae sleeps soundly in his bed. To complain would be to throw everything he had prayed and wished and hoped for so truly, so deeply, back in her face. To do so would be to tempt fate, to ask the Gods to return them to the fear and poverty of before.

It is better to be feared, he reasons, than to be afraid. He hopes Belle shares this view.

She holds him in the night, upon their new bed in their new bedroom, on their new clean sheets. She insists upon it, newly strengthened arms wrapped tight around his body, holding him close. She wants him safe, and Bae, just as she always did. It’s the only thing that hasn’t changed.

But if Belle’s heart remains the same, her body has changed beyond recognition. Her long hair has become softer, springier, curling tighter around her shoulders and shimmering in the sunlight.

Her eyes are opaque, a strange greenish gold, the same hue as the scales that now cover her once soft, warm skin. She is still warm, at least, but too hard, too sharp. When she holds him at night he cannot clutch her back, for fear of rubbing too hard and burning his own flesh.

They don’t make love, not ever, not since she changed. Neither one of them is ready for that. She holds him in a vice, every night: he feels as safe as he does scared, and when he sleeps it is uneasy. 

She asks him every morning how he slept; he lies, and tells her all is well.

How could it not be? They have a house now, with bedrooms and a parlour, a little garden in the back where Bae has started a garden plot. They’re safe, day and night.

They don’t kiss, caress, make love, not anymore. Rumpelstiltskin dreamed, so long ago now, of a time when they would be safe, and Belle would be whole, and they could spend hours in each other’s arms, happy and warm. But their bed is anything but happy, and Belle’s skin is too hard and rough in comparison to the soft sweetness he loved so much.

She’d said she loved him, the last time he saw her with her human face, and he’d not the courage then to say it back. Now he wonders if she’ll ever know, or if he’ll ever mean it like he would have then.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, late one night, and Rumpelstiltskin, feigning sleep, blinks his eyes open.

“For what, dear?” he asks, softly.

He’d have brought down the world to keep her safe and happy. Now she does the same for him, and he can see the toll it takes. No love, no safety, no amount of comfort or peace is worth the price of her prone and bleeding on the floor, covered in blood, gasping for air. No love is worth whatever dark deeds she felt obligated to commit, that left her in that state and her enemy undoubtedly even worse. 

“For hurting you,” she whispers, “for… changing. I’m sorry I’m not who I used to be.”

“I don’t mind,” he says, but he knows the lie is unconvincing, and that she won’t believe a word.

They don’t talk; they don’t kiss. She holds him all night, and he, a coward to the last, is too scared of hurting her - Belle, the invincible avenging angel who lead the children home! - to tell her that she is hurting him, that he does wish that things were still the way they used to be.

“Liar,” she murmurs.

They lie in the dark, without another word to say to one another. He listens to her heartbeat, slow and soft, still human there, at least. Her breathing stirs her hair. He misses her most, here and now, when she is here in his arms.

When she is gone in the morning, Rumpelstiltskin is devastated, but he cannot claim to be truly surprised. Her wedding ring is on her pillow, rested on top of a hastily-scrawled note that Bae has to read for them both ‘Don’t follow me. I’m sorry - Belle’.

She isn’t coming back. His heart sinks heavy with dread, broken and dead and useless, but he does not crumple, does not cry, not even as Bae clutches him close and shakes.

He is devastated, a broken man, but despite all of that, he is not angry. She did what she did best, when faced with an impossible choice, an unhappy future: she ran.

And no matter how hard he tries, Rumpelstiltskin cannot blame her for that.


	17. Chapter 17

Something terrible has happened. Bae recognises the look in his father’s eyes with a sinking heart: someday, perhaps, something good will happen instead.

He’s holding something in his hands. They’re shaking, but his face is as grim and resigned as Bae has ever seen them, and without asking he can guess what’s happened. He’s almost fifteen now, almost a man: when he asks, his father doesn’t mask the truth in a pretty lie, as once he might.

“What’s happened, papa? Where’s mama?”

“She’s gone, Bae,” his father sighs, his eyes on the ring he holds between his fingertips. The simple wedding band she’d been so grateful to receive, that had meant her freedom and her safety, the birth of their family. That she’d leave it behind lands like a heavy blow in Bae’s stomach. It means so much more than forgetting a little piece of metal.

“She isn’t coming back, is she?” Bae’s voice wavers, as if he’s still a child. For all Belle hasn’t been his mama since she returned to them scaled and bloodied, they at least still had a part of her when she was here. Without her here, they’re back to where they were: sad, alone, lost.

“I don’t think so, son,” Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head. “No.”

“Can I… can I have that?” Bae nods to the ring, and his father gratefully places it in his hand. “I’d like to remember her,” he says, and Rumpelstiltskin nods.

“So would I, Bae,” he nods, his voice heavy with fatigue and grief. “You could hold onto that for her, until she comes back.”

Bae nods, and although he’s grown again and is almost taller than his father now, he leans in and rests his head on Rumpelstiltskin’s thin shoulder. He takes comfort from his father’s arm wrapped about his shoulders, drawing him closer. They stand that way for a long time, holding each other in an effort to heal the gaping empty space left by Belle’s leaving.

They neither of them say that there’s little chance Belle will ever return. They don’t have to.

But while Baelfire and his father grieve the loss of a wife and mother, the rest of the village seems to feel a heavy weight relieved. Life settles quickly, with the Dark One vanished and the children returned at last. With the source of their fear gone without a trace, Bae is surprised to find that people are more willing to come and speak with him and his father. They invite them to gatherings and buy Rumpelstiltskin’s wares, they even smile and say hello in the streets.

The gold Belle brought home with them is enough to set them up for life. With the threat of poverty banished, Bae is glad to see Rumpelstiltskin grow stronger, his bones less obvious under a healthier layer of skin and his movements easier as he gets enough to eat. They sleep in warmer beds at night; their clothes last longer and feel better against the skin.  Bae even makes a few friends, and sees his father cautiously do the same.

The coward’s mark that has dogged Rumpelstiltskin his whole life is finally washed away. The whole town transfers their gratitude for the return of their children from the dreaded Dark One to her husband. They’d been grateful to Belle, but she’d been a strange and unsettling heroine for their stories. Bae realises quickly that a simple, humble father would make a much easier source for their gratitude. Even one who, mere months ago, they had hated and reviled. Baelfire finds himself growing cynical and weary of their community, but at least they are accepted now. He can almost feel the healing effect it has on his father.

They both try to defend Belle, speak of her bravery and courage in taking on the curse, in saving them all at the cost of her very soul, but no one will hear it. The consensus appears to be that what she did might well have been noble, but that everyone sleeps easier without her nearby. 

“They shouldn’t call her a monster, papa,” Baelfire argues, when they are alone one evening around the fire. Belle has been gone two months, but they both still feel her loss as if it were only yesterday. “I can’t bear it.”

“I know it’s hard, son,” his father sighs. “But no one will listen. They barely knew her before, and even if they did… people hate what they can’t understand.”

“When she comes back, I’ll make them know her,” Baelfire swears. His father smiles at his optimism, when neither of them truly believes she’ll ever come back. “I won’t let them treat her like this.”

“You’re a good son, Bae,” Rumpelstiltskin smiles. “She’d appreciate that.”

“Have you tried calling her again?” Baelfire asks, then. “It’s been two months, maybe this time she’d listen?”

“I summon her every night, son,” Rumpelstiltskin tells him, and Bae’s hopes die as fast as they’d been born. “She’s not coming back.”

Bae reaches under his tunic and draws out Belle’s wedding ring, now hung on a length of homespun thread plaited into a ribbon. His father is becoming renowned as the best spinner around, and the merchants take him far more seriously now that they live in a nice house. The whiff of success apparently attracts further investment, and they grow prosperous in their own right. But Baelfire still knows that his father would trade every brick of his house, and every coin in their coffers, for one more day with Belle.

“I’m going to go look for her,” Bae says, one night by the fire, and the words are out of his mouth before he even finishes the thought. “I can’t… she just left without saying goodbye, papa.”

“Bae it’s still dangerous out there!” His father’s expression is familiar, the old fear for Bae’s safety ever present no matter what else is happening. “Even with the war over, the roads aren’t safe.“

“She wouldn’t let me get hurt, papa,” Bae reminds him. “I have to believe she’d come save me.”

“I wish I believed the same, son,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, grimly.

“You do, papa,” Baelfire argues back. “You do believe it, you believe in her. I have to go and find her; I have to bring her home. She’d do the same for us. She brought us home.”

“Aye,” Rumpelstiltskin nods at this undeniable truth. “that she did.”

“She enchanted all my clothes when she was here,” Bae continues, pressing his advantage. “Everything’s covered in protection spells. Please let me go, papa, please.”

“You’re just a boy, Bae,” Rumpelstiltskin reminds him, helplessly. “You can’t leave me too.”

“I’ll be back in two weeks, papa,” he vows. “And things are safer now. I’ll go to the city, Duke Gaston must know something, and he’ll speak to me. He must be worried about her, too, you know. I’ll stay in the city a week, then I’ll come home.”

Rumpelstiltskin thinks about this in silence, but gives no reply. Baelfire thinks this is as close to assent as he’ll get.

The next morning finds Baelfire standing at the front door in the dawn’s light, his leather pack strapped to his back, and his father holding him fast about the shoulders. “If you don’t come back…”

“I’ll come back, papa,” Bae promises, firmly. “I have my sword and I’m almost a man, now. The road is safe now that the war’s over. I’ll come back in two weeks, and I’ll send word if anything at all happens.”

“You send word if you trip and fall even for a moment,” Rumpelstiltskin warns. He shakes his head, rubs a hand over his face.“Gods above, I shouldn’t let you go. I shouldn’t let you out of my sight for a moment. I should be going with you.”

“You have those traders from the Marshlands coming tomorrow,” Bae shakes his head. “I won’t be gone long, papa. I’ll run home at the first sign of any trouble, I promise.”

“Good,” Rumpelstiltskin nods, tears in his eyes. “Gods, if anything ever happened to you, Bae…”

“It won’t,” Bae promises. “I promise, I’ll be safe. Covered in protection spells, remember?”

“You’ll come back?” Rumpelstiltskin checks, desperation lacing his voice.

“I’ll come back,” Bae nods, and hugs his father fiercely, one more time. “I promise.”

“Then off with you,” Rumpelstiltskin mumbles into his collar. Then, to his son’s amazement, he lets Bae go. “And if I hear you’ve been a hero even once, you’ll be mixing the lanolin for the rest of your days.”

Bae nods, and laughs, tears in his own eyes. “Understood. Goodbye, papa.”

“Travel safe, son. Come home soon.”

Bae nods, and turns to walk away, but he only makes it a few steps before Rumpelstiltskin calls out one more time. “Bae?”

“Yes, papa?” he turns back, and sees his father standing awkwardly, looking a little ashamed of what he has to say.

“If you… if somehow you do find her, I need… can you pass on a message, if nothing else?”

“I’ll bring her home papa-“

“I know you intend to, and maybe you will, but if you do find her… just tell her… tell her I love her? I never said it before and now… I just need her to know that.”

Bae’s heart aches in his chest, but he swallows and nods. “I will, papa. I’ll tell her.”

“Good. I love you, Bae.”

“I love you too, papa. See you in two weeks.” 

With a final wave to his father, Bae turns to the open road, and starts to walk.

He’d been right: the main roads are rigorously policed and utterly safe, with the war over and the soldiers come home. The new Duke Gaston apparently feels it is his first duty to ensure the safety and wellbeing of his people, so Bae encounters several groups of patrolling soldiers who ask every traveller they see to report anything they see. Everything is so different now than it had been those months ago, when he and his mama and papa had run down dark backroads as if the devil were on their heels. But then, this time Bae keeps to the main highway, whereas before they’d been avoiding soldiers at all costs.

Longbourne is only a day’s walk, and Bae makes it to the town by nightfall. It’s two days from here by horse and cart to the capital, but on foot he can make it in three.

He goes to a small inn for the night, the same inn he and his family stayed in on their way to the capital those months ago. This time he pays the fee for a room for himself, and they treat him as a prosperous merchant’s son, not a peasant’s boy sleeping in the kitchens. 

He leaves his things in his room, then finds a seat in the little tavern and receives a bowl of soup for his dinner. He sits opposite a group of men who talk quietly amongst each other, and takes a moment to enjoy his food before asking his question. “Have you heard anything about the Dark One lately?”

They all go silent at that, and stare at him in horror. “You’d say that name around good people, boy?” one of the men asks, warning clear in his low voice. “Do you want us all killed?”

“She ah… she stole something belonging to my father,” Bae lies, the lie he’s been forming since he started down the road. ‘She is my stepmother and the love of my father’s life’ wouldn’t open many doors for him, and he’d been right, if the very mention of her title caused that reaction. “I need to get it back.”

“Ha!” one of the men scoffs. “Good luck, son. Everyone knows that no one crosses that demon and lives, no matter how pretty its host.”

“It’s very valuable,” Bae presses, meaning every word - for what does Belle possess if not his father’s heart? “I need to find her.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” the man warns. “No man who values his life would go near that monster. We don’t know anything, stop asking.”

Bae nods, knowing when it’s time to keep his mouth shut, and goes back to his soup. 

His inquiries around the town before his departure the next day go no better: everyone he comes across warns him away, and swears to know nothing on the subject. Some spit and make their holy signs to ward off the evil he brings just by mentioning the Dark One; others accuse him of drawing the demon near on purpose. Still more assume he’s a fool, a stupid young man on a heroic quest, doomed to die in the name of glory. He’s told a hundred times over that the Dark One cannot be killed, so he shouldn’t go trying.

That killing Belle is the last thing in the world he’d want to do isn’t something that seems worth mentioning. After all, how many people in this world look at something hated and reviled, and wonder how to bring it home, to give it peace, to love it?

Belle did that, he thinks, and the thought puts strength in his spine. If the situations were reversed, and his father had been the one to take on the curse and save them all, Belle would have never given up looking for a way to save him. She is owed the same bravery, the same courage and the same understanding, in return.

She’s his mother, his family, in all the ways that matter. So Bae spends one more night in his lodgings in Longbourne, and then makes his way to the capital.

It is on the way there, in the convent he stays in for a night, that he gets his first helpful answer. He’s eating his dinner in the rectory, when he overhears the nuns at the next table discussing a witch who has taken up residence in the woods. They’ve seen her at night performing spells that run counter to the way the Gods would have the world. They’re disapproving, but their mission seems to be to save her, rather than to capture and kill her.

“Excuse me,” Bae interrupts them, cautiously. They look at him with a welcome kindness, for even now with the war ended the suspicion and distrust that had darkened the realm has not died in the towns. The nuns here are patient and kind, and it restores some of the hope and faith that had been whittled away back in Longbourne. “Did I hear you mention a witch?”

“Best word for her, I reckon,” one of the nuns, a plump older woman with warm green eyes, replies. “She looks like a willing, half-starved and mad. We’ve tried to call out to her and bring her inside several times, but she vanishes whenever you get close.”

Bae’s heart clenches in his chest at the thought of Belle, rail-thin a dirty, pacing the woods and screaming to the skies. “Does she… I’m sorry, but does she look human?”

“What do you mean?” the nun asks, “She’s definitely woman-shaped. Whether you can call a witch a person is another matter, of course.”

“No I mean… I mean does she have human skin? A woman like you describe came to our village a few months ago, and she stole something from my father. I need to get it back.”

“Now that you mention it…” another nun, smaller and younger than the last, speaks up. “I got close to her the last full moon, she was out doing her devilish work and I thought to bring her inside and… her skin did look odd in the moonlight.”

“Odd how?” the older nun rounds on her, eyes narrowed. “You mentioned nothing of this before, Sister Nesta.”

“I didn’t think it important, Sister Eldredda,” Sister Nesta squeaks, startled. “I’m sorry, I thought it might just be some poultice she’d smeared on her skin. I didn’t think it worth mentioning.”

“What colour was it?” Bae asks, eagerly. “Her skin, I mean?”

“It was so dark…” Sister Nesta mumbles, “But… maybe greenish? And it was odd, like scales or something, I don’t know. Like I said, it was dark, and who knows what these demonic women cover themselves in during the full moon?”

“That might be her,” Bae nods, “where did you see her?”

“In the woods behind the chapel,” Sister Eldredda says, in a voice that carries a ring of finality, the end of the conversation. “But her cave is likely up in the hills, for we’ve sought her out in the woods and found no dwelling.”

“Thank you, sisters,” Bae beams at them, “thank you very much!”

He finishes his dinner quickly, his mind whirring. He sleeps fitfully that night, excitement and anticipation keeping him awake, and he rises and dresses early. He sets out at dawn from the convent, ignoring the road and choosing a small woodcutter’s path that leads into the woods, into the hills. 

“Belle?” he calls, at the top of his lungs, “Belle? Dark One? I summon you!” His voice drops and squeaks embarrassingly, wavering between a childish soprano and a man’s tenor. At least it’s loud either way, and he hopes it’s her, he hopes she’s here. “Belle, please? It’s me, Bae!” 

As expected, there is no answer. Perhaps it’s not even her: for all he knows, he’s breaking his vow to his father and risking his safety chasing a witch as crazed and dangerous as the nuns described, and Belle has willed herself thousands of leagues away.

“Belle, please,” he murmurs under his breath, the incline growing steeper and his breath coming shorter as the undergrowth grew thick around his ankles. “If I’m walking into danger please come save me, papa will kill me if I get myself hurt looking for you…”

He staggers further, higher and higher, the trees getting thicker and darker until the high canopy blocks out the sun. The wind picks up, the chill working beneath his cloak to his very skin, until he is forced to clutch the thick wool about his shoulders for warmth. His pack seems to grow heavier and heavier, as if the air itself is leaching the very strength from his body. He begins to think longingly of his home, of his father’s warm smile and of the hearth, and of the safety therein.

He’s been forced to grow up very fast these past months, he thinks to himself, and he’s not the boy he was. That had been a source of pride in Longbourne, but now the danger and responsibility of manhood seems like a burden, like a deadly task. Baelfire stops dead as another blast of icy wind chills him to his bones. In the darkness of the woods he suddenly feels very, very small, and he craves nothing more than to run home, to bury himself in his father’s arms and never come out, as he had as a child. How callous had he been, to throw away the sacrifices his father had made to keep him from the war by wandering haplessly now into danger? He is overcome by shame, and by the desire to turn around and run home, to reassure his father that he is safe, and will never leave again.

He turns to look behind him, fear and dread washing over him as he realises that the path had vanished long ago. He’s been forced to wind through trees to keep up with the incline, and now Bae has to admit he has no idea at all where he is. 

His quest seems ridiculous now that he thinks of it: staggering though unknown woods, to pursue a dangerous witch on the outlying chance that, on a dark night and through several layers of trees, a nun had seen his stepmother dancing under the moon. The woods are thick, potentially full of dangers, and who knows how well his protection spells will hold up? He’s hardly proficient with his sword, and he had promised his father he’d come home. 

He’s broken his word, his word to the most important person in the world to him. If he never comes home Rumpelstiltskin will be left alone, abandoned and forever wandering where his family went, and why they never came home to him. The thought comes with a sickening sense of betrayal and dread.

But if it was Belle here in the woods, and he continued on to the city only to hear nothing, the trail gone cold, then he’d have to live the rest of his life knowing that cowardice had caused him to fail them both. Belle saved him from the war, and Morraine, and every other child in the realm. She’d saved both Bae and Rumpelstiltskin from the Ducal palace prison. More than that, she’d made Baelfire’s poor, haggard, starving father smile and laugh for the first time in years.

Belle is worth fighting for, and Bae knows that beneath all the fear and loss his father would agree. 

So he staggers on, gritting his teeth against unseasonable wind and reasonable fear, until he finally reaches a stream. He’s been walking since daybreak, and that had been several hours ago, and so he decides to take a rest here, and regain his strength.

Bae sits himself down on the riverbank, and drains his skein of water in several long gulps before refilling it in the clear waters of the stream. He can see the sky here, without the thick canopy of leaves above him, but it worries hi to find that since he’d left the convent the sky has covered over with thick, dark storm clouds. 

Heavy rain is coming, he can smell it on the air, and if a storm picks up Bae knows he could be trapped up in the hills for days with few supplies.

The convent had had a small water wheel, he remembers, and he’s been walking pretty well straight uphill all day. If he were to follow the stream down there’d be a good chance he’d reach the convent eventually, and that thought gives him comfort. He isn’t lost: he will make it down safely, eventually.

“Okay, Belle,” he addresses the sky, and hopes she’s listening. “I’m going to follow the stream up to its source, and keep looking for you. If I reach the source and can’t find you, I’ll follow it back down, and move on to look elsewhere. Please, if you’re here, please come and find me, please show me a sign.”

He pulls the roll of bread the nuns had given him that morning, and breaks it in half. He stays by the stream until he’s finished eating, and feels strong enough to continue, and then sets off up the hill again, following the stream. The nun the day before had told him about a cave where she thought the witch was hiding, that was just past the top of this hill. If he could reach it, he reasons, then perhaps Belle would be there.

The heavens open soon after, and even the thick, lanolin-treated wool of his cloak and hood can’t keep the water and cold out. The wind picks up, making the raindrops against him stab like icicles, and he shivers hard, clutching the cloak closer around him. Once again thoughts of home pervade his mind, as if he were desperately trying to convince himself to give up and go home.

“I can’t,” he mutters, under his breath, “I can’t go home. If I go home now I’ve failed, and she’ll be lost forever. I have to find her.”

He thinks about returning to hide under the trees, but if he loses the stream he knows he’ll never find his way back. The trees grow ever darker, mist thickening to opaque fog as he reaches the low cloud cover, and he can’t see more than a few feet through the clouds in any direction. The moisture sinks through his clothes and coats his skin, until he thinks he’ll never be warm or dry ever again. 

He begins to hear things in the distance, a howling that sounded like wolves, a roar like a bear. He’d not thought to ask about the wild animals in these mountains, and he so he keeps to the stream religiously, one hand clutching his cloak, the other on the hilt of his sword.

He’s terrified, but it’s a feeling Bae’s used to by now, and he’s made a promise. He’ll keep it: he’ll reach the source of the stream, and then he’ll find the cave. 

Summoning all his anger and his fear and his bravery, Bae throws his head back, and addresses the storm itself. “I won’t go home without her!” he screams at the sky. He takes a deep breath, and tries again, “Dark One! Belle! I summon you, come to me!”

The wind howls back, stronger and more violent than ever, as he finally, finally crests the hill. The stream sources, it seems, from a little bubbling spring on the crest, and he’s found it, but he hasn’t found her.

He looks up to the sky, and sees that the sun is setting, and it has grown darker. He’s been walking all day, and it’ll soon be nightfall, he realises with a sinking stomach. If he tries back down again tonight, he thinks, then he’ll never make it back alive. He’ll become lost, or injure himself, or he’ll encounter something big and covered in teeth. He’s safer up here, but the wind is still howling, buffeting him on all sides without the protection of the trees. The rain has picked up again, showering him from the dark clouds above until he’s drenched and shivering. Bae finds himself lost, cold, soaked to the skin and miserable and desperate for a fire, a change of clothes and his father’s patient smile. 

As if for emphasis, thunder rumbles in the distance, and lightning cracked across the sky. “I want to go home,” Baelfire murmurs, miserably. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

The top of the hill is as foggy and dark as the last mile or so had been, and Bae finds he can’t see beyond his hand in any direction. He shivers, every inch of him soaked and frozen and shaking, and he pulls the small torch he’s carried all this way and a tinderbox from his pack, lighting the fabric and looking about himself.

Starting back into the woods would make sense, but the thought of wolves and bears halts his steps. It would make sense, he thinks, for fewer wild animals to prowl the exposed top of the hill, so he stays where he is, and thinks again about what the nuns had said about caves. Perhaps he could find the one Sister Nesta had mentioned while he still had a little light to see by. If it were empty of witches, he could sleep there and walk down in the morning. If not… well, then he’d find out how powerful Belle’s protection spells truly are.

“I’m not safe no matter what I do,” Bae mutters to himself. “And most likely the cave is empty, and I can sleep there. Papa would want me to find shelter.”

Actually, his papa would have wanted him to stay home entirely, safe and warm and dry and loved. But thinking that just brings a lump to Bae’s throat and tears to his eyes, so he forces the thought aide.

Nodding with a resolve he doesn’t feel, Bae raises his little torch and continues on, although every muscle protests at the effort. It feels as if every element imaginable is trying to force him home, and he has the wild, impossible thought that perhaps that is intentional; that perhaps whoever or whatever resided on this mountain doesn’t want to be found.

“I’d do that too,” he says to himself, “If I wanted to be left alone, I’d make the wind howl, and rain blast anyone who came up. I’d make them want to go home, make them feel scared and lost and alone.”

Maybe Belle had sent the wind and the rain and the misery to convince him to turn back. Perhaps she doesn’t even know it’s him: Bae can’t imagine her ever hurting him on purpose.

Perhaps it is a wicked witch who lives on this mountain, and he’s feeding himself to her. If that’s the case, then maybe Belle will finally answer his summons. The Dark One can hear its name called across the realms, the legend goes: she’s either ignoring him, or she has deafened herself.

The other thought - that with her customary bravery and self-sacrifice she has fallen on her dagger and ended the Dark One permanently - has plagued at Bae since he first heard his father calling to her without response. He refuses to think too long on it, as he has for months. Belle has fought too hard to survive too much to choose to die now.

He stumbles for what feels like hours through darkening fog, his torch raised like a standard before him, blazing his trail. His legs ache and burn, his strength waining, and he gives one more step, one final attempt, before at last he stumbles, his foot catching on a loose stone, and he falls to his knees in the cold, wet earth.

It is only then, then in the mud and the fog and the rain, that Baelfire gives up. 

There is no cave, or if there is he won’t find it, and he hasn’t anything left in him, any fight or strength or bravery left to try. He can’t get up. His legs stiffen, shake, and fall again when he tries. 

“Please, mama,” he whimpers, the first time he’s called her that since he started summoning her, “Please mama, find me, please…”

His eyes close, his head drops, and the fog closes in.

And then, despite the noise and the wind and the rain, there comes a voice, achingly familiar and impossible, calling through the fog. “Bae?”


	18. Chapter 18

“Bae?” 

The young man - barely more than a boy - on the ground looks up at her voice, and gives a small, wan smile. He murmurs something, “I found you, mama.” Then his dark eyes close, and his curly head falls to the earth, and everything in the Dark One that is the woman she used to be comes screaming to the surface.

“Oh Gods, Bae!” she cries, and falls to her knees, gathering the shaking, frozen boy into her arms. “Oh no, no no no,” she murmurs, frantically. She clutches his precious body to her chest, cradling his curly head in her scaled hand. 

In a moment they are back in her cave, the fires lit and the air warm. She strips him from his soaked clothes and wraps him in every blanket she can find or summon, until he is more fabric than child and as close to the fire as he can be without being in the grate.

He doesn’t awaken. Belle is only reassured that he will live when the colour starts returning to his cheeks, and after a long, long time he stops shaking. She sits beside him, stroking his drying curls with one hand, the other clenched at her side, sharp nails biting into her palm.

She will kill Rumpelstiltskin. She will kill him for this, for sending his son to find her, for putting him in this danger. Protecting Bae was the one thing she would always count on him for, even if he hadn’t been able to love her, even if he hadn’t the stomach for the battles she’d had to fight, the blood she’d had to spill. She’d believed Baelfire utterly, perfectly safe with him, and yet here he is, hypothermic and unconscious by her fire, leagues from home and all alone. Rumpelstiltskin is nowhere to be seen: perhaps Bae has been alone since he left the village. 

Rumpelstiltskin will answer for this crime. This boy, this precious, brave, special boy, must be protected at all costs. Rumpelstiltskin put him in this danger, and he will pay for his negligence, his cowardice to have this brave child come alone when he himself was too afraid.

She watches over Bae all night, worry gnawing at the pit of her stomach. Her fingers itch with the Dark One’s powers, longing to gather the child into her arms and transport them both to Rumpelstiltskin’s hearthside, draw blood this very night. But it is possible Rumpelstiltskin has an excuse, she thinks, he may be sick or dead already. The thought terrifies her, reminding her that beneath the Dark One and the scales she is still Belle, still his wife, still as in love with him as ever she’d been.

It matters not that he’d never loved her back. She doesn’t care, here and now, if he’d ever had more than casual regard for her, or she for him. All that matters is this boy, their boy, her son as much as his, whom he has allowed to collapse, cold and exhausted and alone, on her hilltop. He’d walked through every deterrence spell she’d thrown down the mountain, every ounce of wind and lashing rain, and his father had sent him into it with only his cloak for protection.

If Bae doesn’t wake, if he dies here tonight and she cannot save him, then Rumpelstiltskin will die too, by her hand.

The sun is breaking over the hills, unblocked by the storm she’d summoned before she’d known the name of her intruder, before Bae stirs.

“Hey, hey, shh,” she says, kneeling down beside him and stroking his hair once more. “Bae, shh, it’s okay, you’re safe.”

“Mama?” he murmurs, and her cold heart cracks when he fists his hands and buries his face in her skirts. “Mama, I found you.”

“Yes you did, Bae,” she says, trying to sound warm but unable to hide the sharp anger - that he’d been allowed to come for her all alone -  under her voice. “You found me. Why did you come here? You should be safe at home.”

“You have to come home, mama,” Bae tells her, “Papa misses you terribly, we all do. You have to come back. We can be a family again, if you come home.”

“Is your father ill?” Belle asks tightly. “Or dying?”

“No,” Bae shakes his head, “no, he’s fine, except for his leg.”

“And he let you come all this way to find me?” Belle grits her teeth. “You nearly died, Bae,” she reminds him, “he let you kill yourself to bring me back?”

“I… I asked him to,” Bae murmurs, weakly, paling in the face of her clear fury. Belle has seen terror on the faces of men, when presented with her wrath. She knows how her scaled face contorts, her eyes flash, her power crackles in the air. She hates it, hates herself for being unable to hide that horrifying image from Bae, hates knowing that she of all things can scare him. Rumpelstiltskin sent him to her  knowing what she was, knowing the monster she’d become, the danger Bae would be in even if he found her. It is unforgivable.

“You came to bring me home?” she asks, quietly. He nods. “Then let’s go home.”

She snaps her fingers, and they are in Rumpelstiltskin’s home in a cloud of blue smoke, as if they never left. Another rush of magic has Bae dressed once more: he’ll want to run away, before this is over, and he should be able to. Belle rises from her kneeling position in a moment, while Bae shudders at the magic crawling over his skin. He stands quickly, and backs away from her. Belle’s soul cries out at this, for to frighten Bae is a crime far worse than any death she’s caused, but her soul has little say in the matter. The Dark One blazes from behind her eyes, and her clawed hand lifts before her with terrible intent.

Rumpelstiltskin rises from his chair quickly, hand clenched on his walking stick. He looks sickeningly happy to see her. She wants to rip out his throat. “Belle, you’re-“

“You can be silent, for a start,” she snarls, unwilling and unable to listen to his greetings, his apologies, his excuses. She sends her magic out in a lash that closes around his throat, cutting off his speech, and all but just enough air to breathe. The magic immobilises him, holding him still while she speaks. 

“Belle-“ he gasps, but it does him no good.

“I said be silent,” she snaps back. “I thought you were many things, husband,” she spits, stepping toward him, fires burning in her eyes. “But I never thought you such a worthless weakling that you’d throw your own son into harms way. I thought at the least that Bae was safe with you. But no, I see now. You’re just another coward, unfit to protect even your own kin.”

He gasps a denial, shakes his head. Her lip curls. “He nearly died last night, Rumple,” she tells him. He blanches, terror unlike any she’s seen from him before widening his eyes. It does him some small credit that losing Bae scares him worse than she does. “You allowed him to chase off alone, following a demon, without a weapon or a guard. And I nearly killed him. He would be dead right now, were it not for sheer luck. I’ll have your life in exchange for that piece of carelessness. You’re unfit even to breathe the same air.”

“But you didn’t kill me mama,” Bae shakes his head, “I’m here, I’m alive!” He moves forward, toward her, swallowing his fear to face her straight on. Her eyes stay locked on his twitching, suffocating father. The man who’d let him leave this safe, protected hearth, and almost die on a mountaintop, alone and cold and forgotten. The man who will will die for that. “Let him go!”

“Do you know why I left, Bae?” she asks, softly. She turns to face him; he’s closer than she’d thought. Her heart nearly stops to see he’s almost taller than she is now.

“No, mama,” he shakes his head. She swallows around a lump in her throat at that name from him. She’s not his mama anymore. She hasn’t been in a long time. And from today, she will be the monster who killed his father. Belle can cope with that, she can live with Bae’s fear and hatred, if it means Bae can be kept somewhere safe, safe from his neglectful bastard of a father, and too scared to approach his monstrous stepmother ever again.

“Because I was lying there, beside your father, and I was thinking about how easy it would be to break his neck.” She lays the truth out for him and watches as it sinks into his skin. “And how easy it will be now,” she grin, a false smile, full of malice she hopes she really feels, her gaze turning back to Rumpelstiltskin. His head is turning red and blue, he’s begging with every strained breath. “You never loved me, Rumple,“ she tells him, "and I’ve made peace with that. But if you didn’t love our son enough to protect him, and you have to pay for that.”

“Mama…” Bae shakes his head, “no this is the curse talking,” he insists. “This isn’t you!” She smiles thinly at his naiveté. 

“Yes,” she agrees, “The Dark One changed me, remade me, but I was already broken. Perhaps once I wouldn’t have done this. But then, I sliced the throat of my last husband without a scale on my body, so who’s to say I can’t do it again? The curse means that I want to do this, and no one can tell me for certain where the line is drawn.” 

“If you do this, Belle, then you can’t come back,” Bae begs. It breaks her heart that he’s so tall and his voice so low: she left him a boy, and he’s come back a young man. “You love us, both of us. You can’t do this.”

“You don’t love me,” Belle denies, seeing through that lie at least, knowing it for the childish manipulation it is. How could they love her, the desperate, bloodied thing that had arrived on their doorstep, who’d broken her vow with a blade and restarted a war that killed hundreds of innocents? She who had caused them to be beaten and locked away, simply by being around them? “You love what I’ve done for you, the money and the security, the power. Maybe you think you love the person I was. But that person is dead now, so there’s no need to keep pretending.”

“You’re ours!” Bae cries, high and cracked with desperation. “Of course I love you, and so does papa! But we can’t love you if you do this. If you kill him then you’ll lose everything that matters, and you know that, mama!”

“I have always destroyed everything I care about. My father is dead, the kingdom in tatters for a war I helped to start, my first husband died by my blade, and now this. I left because I loved you. You’ve dragged me back here, and now the curse gets to finish what I started.”

“No it doesn’t, mama,” Bae presses. “You’re stronger and braver than it is. You can fight it.”

She looks at him, tears her eyes from Rumple’s red, tear-streaked face, sees the earnest honesty in Bae’s expression. Something, something buried deep and far but more powerful than anything, catches light. 

Belle’s hand lowers, her magic releases; Rumpelstiltskin drops to the floor in a gasping, retching heap. Bae rushes forward to support him, arms around his back, holding him steady as he heaves. They huddle there on the floor, her family, her broken little family, and this time she is the one to break them. Belle hates herself more than anything in the world in that moment. 

“I am fighting it, Bae,” she whispers, hands shaking. “This is me, fighting it. I’ve given it the blood it wants, from ogres and criminals and warlords, from men the world won’t miss. I try to take what no one needs, to break what no one will miss. And was just about keeping it at bay. And then you came back, and you nearly died, for me. And he let you. I left for your own good. I can’t this curse anything break something as precious as you.”

“Then don’t,” Bae says, simply, as if it is simple.

When he looks at her like that, something strong and fierce tugs in her belly. Her love for this boy might be the only thing more powerful than the Dark One’s hold on her, for for the first time in two months Belle feels like a separate entity, more than just the shell of a demon. Humanity is a dangerous addiction, and she holds on with the slenderest of grips, but he may well be right. 

Rumpelstiltskin looks up at her, gasping still but alive, and for a moment Belle is so grateful that he yet lives, despite her efforts, that she can hardly breathe herself. He might never have loved her, they may never have been happy, but that didn’t stop him from worming into her heart a long time ago. The wind is knocked out of her with the sheer relief that he is alive, that she didn’t kill him, that he can breathe. She loves Rumpelstiltskin too, loves them both, and the curse had twisted that into a terrible fury that they hadn’t kept themselves safe. And all because it knew that if anything happened to them, then she might never recover.

“He let you come alone,” she reminds him, again, her lips numb. “What if it had been something else up here? I’ve spells all around that hill to keep summons out: I almost blasted you clean off the mountain when you broke through anyway! I could have killed you just yesterday, Bae! And after all this… how can you possibly think there’s anything left in me to hold onto?”

“I called you and you found me, and you nursed me through the night,” he reminds her. Rumpelstiltskin’s face softens, and Belle swallows hard. The guilt of having hurt him, intended to kill him, crashes over her in a wave. “You would never hurt me, not on purpose.”

“You called me ‘mama’,” she murmurs back. “I heard it and it… tugged at me, somehow. I don’t understand how it broke through.” 

“You are his mother,” Rumpelstiltskin says, his voice quiet and hoarse, pained from the bruising she’s given his throat, but his gaze is unwavering. “In every way that counts. You brought us back to life, Belle, you came and… you made everything warm again. You brought the light in. That doesn’t stop mattering because you’re cursed into the dark. It doesn’t stop meaning something because you do terrible things.”

“I was here, Rumple,” she reminds him, quiet and desperate, clenching her fists to keep from screaming. “I was here and I tried, but you weren’t happy anymore. I’m not human, I’m not your wife. I’m the Dark One, and the night I left, I wanted to kill you simply for being beside me. How could you want that beside you every night? How could you want that around your son?”

"Because you are still my wife, and still Bae’s mama,” he croaks. “Because the good doesn’t stop mattering just because things went bad. And I’m so sorry, Belle, for letting you think that it did. For letting my fear, my… my cowardice get in the way.”

“Happy memories can’t keep you safe,” she all but begs him, but neither of her boys concedes the point.

Bae considers her, and she notices him fidgeting with something under his clothes around his collarbone. She hadn’t noticed any talismans or amulets last night when she wrapped him up, but she had been worried out of her mind about him freezing to death on her floor. He draws it out, now, and her heart stops to see it: her wedding ring.

“Papa said to wear this to remember you,” Bae tells her, carefully. “And he told me that if I saw you…” Bae’s eyes slide to his father, who’s forthright gaze never wavers from Belle’s face.

“I told you him to tell you I love you,” Rumpelstiltskin tells her. “And that I should have said it before.”

“Liar,” Belle murmurs, because how can it be true when it’s said around a windpipe she almost crushed mere minutes ago? It’s a ploy, a trick, a way to convince her to spare his worthless life. “You’re either a liar, or you’re a coward for not telling me when it would have mattered. Either way, it doesn’t mean anything now.”

She’s the liar: it means everything.

“But isn’t love meant to be more powerful than any magic?” Bae argues, “Isn’t that what the stories say?”

Belle shakes her head. She wishes then she still had a heart left to break, a heart left to leap with the thought he might be telling the truth, that her ring wasn’t cast aside or buried, but kept safe about Bae’s neck. 

“You love us too,” Bae insists, and she can’t deny it: she’s admitted as much.

“I did,” Belle agrees, “When I was human. But I’m not anymore. The Dark One isn’t capable of love.”

“But you are,” Bae insists. “You were so angry that papa might have sent me here alone, put me in danger… you wouldn’t have done all thus if you didn’t care. The violence is the curse but the emotion is yours. And that matters, Belle.”

Bae reaches up to the ring at his collarbone, and tugs hard, breaking the string. He holds it out to her, and to Belle, surging as she is with stolen magic, the ring almost seems to glow as he hands it over to her. This is a powerful thing, she thinks: a thing covered in some sort of magic, although of a kind the Dark One refuses to recognise.

She clasps it in her hand, lowers her head, and sinks to her knees, unable to stand any longer. 

—

“I’m sorry,” Belle whispers, her voice broken and strained, and Rumpelstiltskin resists the urge to reach for her. 

He’s able to notice little things about her, in this quiet moment. She looks a little better, her hair under control and her scales less pallid and grey, but she also looks thinner and more tired than she should be. He’s surprised by how little anger and fear he feels, that her attacking him has mattered little. 

But Bae is right: the violence is not hers, but the emotion is. He would be angry too, at anyone he thought had hurled Bae into danger, and were Belle in her right mind, she’d walk into fire before harming either one of them. He’d been so afraid of her, before she left, afraid of exactly this… but now that it’s happened, he finds himself aching for her wounds more than his own. That Belle can believe at all that this monstrosity in any way comes from her hurts far more than his aching throat. Bae shouldn’t have looked for her alone. They should have gone together, as a family, to bring her home.

She is here now, she’s back, and that’s all that matters. Belle scaled and hard and dangerous, hands bloodied with war and eyes gleaming with malice, is still better than no Belle at all. 

She fumbles with her skirts in her hands, eyes down, her hands fisted in the fabric. Bae looks at his father, as if to prompt him forward, and Rumpelstiltskin - his hands still shaking with the terror she’d inflicted before - screws his courage and obeys. He crawls over to her, and places a tentative hand on Belle’s shoulder, tipping her face to look at him. He can see the difference now even if she can’t, even if he couldn’t before. It was the monster who had hurt him, hurt everyone, and it is now the woman whose tears are falling, and who apologises for the pain inflicted. And that woman is as deserving of love and understanding as ever she was before she took on this terrible curse.

“You’re forgiven,” he tells her, softly, and he draws her into a hug, despite her stiff shoulders, her tense muscles resisting him. After a moment she relaxes: her arms clasp around his torso like she never wants to let go, her face buried in his shoulder, breathing deeply.  She draws comfort from the embrace, and so does he. She feels so much like herself in that moment, so much the woman he remembers, so much the woman he loves so much and has been missing for so long, that he knows he told her the truth. He does forgive her, instantly, completely. Isn’t that what love is, above all else? Understanding, support, and the willingness to try again?

For a long moment he just holds her, and allows himself to forget the pain of loss, the worry and loneliness of having them both so far away, and his longing for those sweet days from before, when they’d been together and content, close enough to happy to ignore the difference. He forgets her vanishing, her abandonment of them both, and the two months he’s spent summoning her to no avail. He forgets the danger she presents, her promise to kill him, the pain in his throat. None of it matters with this clear evidence that his beloved wife yet lives, even beneath this demon’s skin.

“I love you,” he tells her again, and she sobs into his shoulder, her whole body shaking as hard as his was. “We love you. You belong with us, Belle, you always have, and you used to understand that. You can have that again. We can work this out, we can survive it, you just have to try.”

She pulls back from him then, and he cups her face in his hands, brushing her tears aside as she shakes her head.

“Why are you saying this?” she demands, her voice shaking and cracked, a mere whisper. “How can you say that now? You couldn’t stand to touch me, Rumple. I could see it on your face. If you were ever in love with me, it ended when I became this. The woman you loved is dead.”

“Because you’re wrong, Belle,” he tells her. “I love you, and even if I don’t know exactly what that means, I do. I still do, even after you tried to kill me, even after you left us. We both still love you.”

Her eyes shift way from his, to look at Bae, who has sat himself down beside them both. Bae takes Belle’s hand in his and squeezes it, and she closes her eyes, shaking as more tears fall. She’s not the only one crying: Rumpelstiltskin’s own face is growing wet.

He drops one hand from her cheek to find her free hand, and brushes his fingers against the skin of her wrist. It’s scaled, rough, but soft, still, even with that sharpness beneath.  His hand slips down her wrist to the back of her hands, to her claws. He tangles his fingers with hers, and squeezes a little, so she’s holding one hand with both of them, all the love in the world surrounding her.

“I love you too, Rumpelstiltskin,” she admits, quiet as a whisper and shaking, her opaque golden eyes searching his. He misses periwinkle blue and rosy cheeks, but he loves her still, and he could get used to scales, if he had to. Loving her and suffering with it is better than missing her and feeling the hole in his chest. If this sliver of her, whatever is left of Belle inside the Dark One’s shell, is all he can ever have of his wife, then he will take it gladly. 

Another tear slips down her cheek, and he brushes it aside with his thumb, his hand still cupping her cheek. Gently, slowly, he tilts her face toward him and leans down, and places one soft kiss to her lips, a kiss of promise and true love and forgiveness, for the woman he loves more than life.

There’s a tingle, a spark, something odd against his skin, and when his lips slide against hers he feels them change, that hard texture growing as soft as he remembers, and warm too. He pulls back as she does the same, gasping, watching as the sweet red flush he remembers so well spreads from her mouth and out, her scales turning back to warm pink skin, her eyes turning clear blue once more. 

“Mama!” Bae cries out and pitches forward himself, kissing her cheek and laughing aloud as yet more pink flourishes from where his lips have touched her face. 

“The curse…” she mumbles, raising her hands and seeing the pink spreading to her fingers, her claws shortening and dulling back to fingernails, her skin growing soft and rosy and warm once more. Rumpelstiltskin kisses her again, and again, drinking in the sweet taste of her lips, and hears her moan as Bae laughs for joy, kissing her hand as Rumpelstiltskin kisses her mouth. Her hair grows softer and warmer under his hands, her whole body shuddering with transformation until, when he pulls back, she is her old self again. She is his love once more, restored to him, his Belle, pink and warm and soft and human, burnished curls and bright blue eyes. His true love, come home.

“I told you!” Bae cries, hugging her as Rumpelstiltskin stares in awe. “Mama, it’s in all the stories! True love’s kiss can break any curse!”

“The curse… it was making you not want to kiss me,” she murmurs, her fingertips pressed to her lips. “It made me push you away, made me repulsive to protect itself.”

“It feeds on unhappiness, so that’s what it created,” Rumpelstiltskin mumbles, his hands roaming over her, feeling her skin once more soft and warm under his hands, like a rebirth, like a miracle. “But it wasn’t stronger than you.”

“Than us,” Belle is crying openly now, tears spilling from her blue eyes. “I can’t believe… True love… both of you… my family!” she collapses forward, Rumpelstiltskin and Bae catch her, and they hold each other close, kneeled on the rug by the hearth, clutching onto one another for dear life. “You love me that much?” She whispers, astounded, and Rumpelstiltskin laughs at how ridiculous such doubts sound now.

“Of course we do,” Bae snuggles in close to her, like a child, and her arm comes almost automatically around his waist to pull him closer. “You belong with us, just like we both said.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s head is spinning, the sudden transition from blackest despair to the fiercest joy he’s ever known sending him reeling. All he can do is clasp Belle tight and kiss her forehead, the crown of her curls, her shoulder, anywhere he can reach to remind himself she’s real.

“You broke the curse,” Belle mumbles, dazedly, “I thought it was going to consume me, that I’d die from it… and you saved me.” She brushes a tear aside with the hand still clasped to Rumpelstiltskin’s, and he strokes her hair with his free hand, fingers carding through her soft, dark tresses, gleaming in the firelight. “You brought me home,” she sniffles, and Bae nods.

“I promised I would, didn’t I, papa?” he smiles, “I kept my promise.”

“Yes, that promise,” Belle murmurs, pulling back, a frown tugging her smooth brow despite the undeniable smile on her mouth. “I’m… oh, Rumple, I’m so, so sorry, I almost… oh Gods, I almost…” then she’s crying again, her hand broken from Bae’s to cover her mouth, wracking sobs racing through her. Rumpelstiltskin holds her close, while Bae helps them all to their feet. They half-carry Belle to the little sofa by the fire and sit down together more comfortably, still clinging on tight.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Rumpelstiltskin breathes into her curls, holding her tight to his side as Bae cuddles against her shoulder. “It’s okay, it wasn’t you. The monster’s gone now, it’s all alright, we’re all safe now. You stopped it, Belle. You managed to save us.”

“I was so angry, Rumpelstiltskin,” she whimpers, her sobs tailing off into hiccups. She looks him in the face. “He nearly died, you know, chasing me” she says, and Rumpelstiltskin starts to hear it from her human mouth. He’d assumed it an exaggeration, the Dark One twisting events. But Belle tells him the truth now, in her soft, regretful voice, as if recounting a terrible dream. “I was so angry with you, because I thought you’d sent him, some suicide mission because you were too afraid to live without my power. Bae climbed through one of my strongest thunderstorms to find me, and he was almost dead when I got to him. How could you let him do that alone?”

“I shouldn’t have sent him by himself,” he admits, and then the rest of the facts dawn, and he frowns. “You did what?” Rumpelstiltskin rounds on his son, who has the decency to cringe, ashamed of himself and palms raised.

“I heard a rumour and wanted to bring her home!” he protests. “I didn’t think she’d throw the weather at me!”

“Our deal was two weeks in the cities to gather information,” Rumpelstiltskin reminds him. “And you were supposed to go to the Duke for protection.” It’s such joy, such luxury to be able to chide his son gently, now that the danger has passed, now that they’re all safe. It brought Belle home to them, whatever Bae did: he can’t be too angry at his son’s foolhardy bravery, for all it terrifies him. “Not trekking alone through all the dangers of the wilderness!”

“I didn’t think you’d let him wander through a dangerous forest all alone!” Belle cries, backing him up. “It sounded so unlike you… but the curse made it feel so true.” She sighs, sags, shakes her head as she leans on his shoulder. “Thank the Gods Bae was covered in my protection spells. The wolves would have had him in minutes, otherwise.”

Rumpelstiltskin swallows hard at that thought, and touches Bae’s shoulder with his hand. He needs that tactile reassurance that his son is alive, and unhurt by a pack of savage animals.

“Wolves?” Bae squeaks, but the look on his father’s face silences him. Now is not the time to dwell on the specifics of how he might have been killed.

“How could you do that?” Belle asks Bae then. “When it got dangerous, those woods are so dark and deep… Gods, Bae, you should have turned back.”

“You’re my mama, Belle. Of course I trekked to find you. And I’d have kept going, if it weren’t for the snow.”

“You’re such a brave thing,” she says, and reaches out a hand to draw him in, so they’re all cuddled together, and Rumpelstiltskin has his arms full of more love than he could ever have imagined. “Stupid, but brave. My little hero.”

Bae grins, and Belle ruffles his hair, and all is right with the world once more.

“You’re staying, then?” Rumpelstilskin checks with her, then, knowing that the curse is gone but needing the reassurance that he won’t wake again to an empty bed and a runaway wife. It’s happened to him twice over now: he couldn’t bear to lose her again.

“For as long as you want me,” Belle promises, and leans up to kiss him tenderly before pressing another kiss to the top of Bae’s curls.

“How does forever sound?” Rumpelstiltskin asks then, trying to sound teasing but coming out hopelessly earnest. Bae grins, and struggles up, away from his beaming parents, and reaches down to the floor, gathering something into his hand. He returns to the sofa and hands the ring to his father, who smiles his thanks.  Rumpelstiltskin holds Belle’s joyous, tear-filled eyes as he slides the ring back where it belongs, where it will remain forever more. “Can you stay forever, Belle?”

“Forever sounds perfect,” she says, beaming ear-to-ear. Rumpelstiltskin can hear Bae whooping for joy even as he pulls his wife in once more, and kisses her with all the love in his heart and soul, the love that broke the darkest curse in all the realms. 

He pulls back, and she’s beaming, so bright and strong and beautiful it hurts to look. They sit that way for a long time, the three of them wrapped up in each other’s arms, finally together, full of love and safe at last, where nothing can harm them again.

Home.


End file.
